Origins: Heritage of First Nations is an oral history project collecting personal stories of members of indigenous and First Nations communities from around the world now living in the UK.  These are stories of travel and migration, of tradition and change, of split identities, of family and community. But they are all stories that sit within the oral traditions of the communities from which they emerge.

This collection of oral histories has been generated through the Learning and Participation programme of Origins: Festival of First Nations produced biannually by Border Crossings, a theatre company specializing in intercultural exchange.

We are grateful to all the interviewees and interviewers for giving their time and interest to realising this project.

We hope that the archive and its associated resources will take these stories to a wider public and enable visitors to appreciate the regenerative role indigenous knowledge has to play in a complex, globalised and troubled world.

‘I think it’s important that the indigenous people have a chance to make their own case for what happened…’

(extract from Stephanie Pratt, designated cultural ambassador for the Dakota nation, 2015)

‘It’s only been in fairly recent history or world history that Aboriginal people have had a voice…so I don’t dismiss these opportunities lightly, I think it’s good to be able to start having those often difficult conversations’

(David Millroy,– Palyku Indigenous Australian artist, 2015)

'That’s where I began is in those two countries.  Because without my parents being in those two countries, I wouldn’t be in this country.  And that’s the way I think of it, is that I am a product of three countries all wrapped up into one'

(extract from an interview with a member of Ngāti Rānana, 2011)