CAHG Scotland Digital Exhibition

Celebrating Scotland’s Intangible Cultural Heritage through Archives

This digital exhibition brings together stories, memories, skills, and traditions that continue to shape life in Scotland today. Intangible cultural heritage is living heritage, whether that’s the songs we sing, the languages we speak, the crafts we practise, the customs we observe, and the knowledge that is passed on. Often undocumented or overlooked, these practices are central to how people understand who they are and where they belong.

Curated by community archives and heritage groups from across Scotland, this exhibition showcases a rich diversity of living traditions through archival material such as oral histories, photographs, recordings, and documents. Each contribution reflects how communities record, remember, and sustain their heritage, capturing culture not as something fixed in the past, but as something actively practised and shared.

This exhibition is part of the Community Archives and Heritage Group Scotland’s fifth anniversary and comes following the UK’s ratification of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, the exhibition highlights the vital role community-led archives play in safeguarding living heritage. Together, these collections demonstrate how archives can support the transmission of knowledge, identity, and cultural expression for present and future generations.

Explore the exhibition to discover how Scotland’s intangible cultural heritage is documented, cared for, and kept alive by communities!.