Produced by
Rua Osman / Helomur Picture
Funded by
An interactive archive of Atina Square, Khartoum — a place altered by war but kept alive through photographs, voices, stories, and the memories of those who lived through it.
Atina Square stood at the intersection of Palace Avenue and Republic Street in central Khartoum. It was a living public square — home to pigeons and tea ladies, artists and writers, musicians and intellectuals, booksellers and political gatherings; a place of chance encounters woven into the daily rhythm of the city.
Then came the war.
The square survives in fragments: in photographs, stories, archival traces, and the memories carried by those who lived through it.
This project is an attempt to gather those fragments — to hold a place that shaped countless lives and to keep its memory open to the future.
Atina was not just a place. It was a daily habit. It was warmth, and pigeons, and books, and people. And it was a time that cannot be recovered.
The project unfolds through two interconnected experiences: an immersive journey through Atina Square and a digital collection of memories, images, and stories.
A ten-minute first-person journey through Atina Square — from dawn to night. Hand-drawn and interactive, the experience invites you to move through the square as someone who belongs there. Along the way, you encounter people, places, and moments that shaped its daily life. At certain points, you choose your path.
All paths lead to the same ending.
Coming soonA collection of photographs, moving images, literature, newspapers, and personal stories organized into eight rooms. Each room offers a different way of knowing Atina Square — through its people, its histories, its rhythms, and its traces. You may enter any room.
You may stay as long as you need.
Enter the Memory Rooms →The place itself — its architecture, its corners, its presence at the center of the city.
Gatherings, ceremonies, protests, celebrations — the square as stage for public life.
Portraits, faces, and figures — those who made Atina what it was by being in it.
The birds that lived there without needing a reason. A presence that needed no explanation.
Writing, poetry, and creative work that touched the square — the cultural memory of a place.
Press coverage and journalism — Atina Square as it appeared in the record of public events.
Drawn memory — illustrations, sketches, and visual interpretations of the square and its life.
The after. What the war left behind — images and traces of the square as it is now.
Produced by
Funded by