Nirmal Raja

Deeply grateful for this grant in support of my crowd sourced project- Amaanat (www.amaanatarchive.com. Thank you ! Get • 🎉 We are thrilled to announce the awardees of our region’s first-ever AANHPI Narrative Change Grant program!

🔎 7 artists and 6 nonprofit arts & culture organizations were selected to share $115,000 in grants as part of our narrative change pilot theme: Building, Becoming, and Belonging. These grants will support works that amplify AANHPI narratives, expand cultural visibility, and deepen belonging. Informed by the findings of our 2025 report: “Making Waves: The State of the Massachusetts AAPI Arts and Culture Sector”, these grants represent a much-needed investment in expanding AAPI voices and stories.

➡️ To read more about this grant and awardees, please visit https://tr.ee/NarrativeChangeGrantees.

In Urdu, amaanat translates to “inheritance” or a very special belonging handed down from one generation to the next.

Amaanat is an online archive that aims to record and preserve the connection between object and story. The stories behind objects inherited from immigrant ancestors are fading quickly, and with them, connection to their roots. This project involves crowdsourcing objects and stories, 3D scanning, and audio recording the stories behind family heirlooms and quotidian objects that are culturally specific and emotionally resonant to the immigrant experience. I investigate the power of material culture to convey cultural nuances, familial histories, and the impact of migration on memory. In this era of stifling immigrant voices and erasure of histories, these stories are first-person narratives subversively situated around objects belonging to all immigrants and those who have recent immigrant ancestry. Currently, this project is limited to a 100 objects with a special focus on AANHPI stories in the great Boston area. Learn more at Www.amaanatarchive.com with a link in my profile. Thank .clyde for designing this striking poster!

I wasn’t able to make the reception but was lovely to make a trip to Springfield to see the show “Inhairitance” at Thank you for this wonderful show with other amazing artists! Please visit if you can…