This work—undertaken during a particularly sedentary time of institutional closures, travel restrictions, and social distancing—begins and ends in a house: in the home of my grandparents, who were born in an Armenian diaspora community in the mountains of northern Syria; migrated to Beirut, Lebanon, to raise a family; and then fled, after almost 15 years of civil war, to permanently settle in Canada. It is from this suburban home in Cambridge, Ontario, that I animate the lines of relation connecting here to elsewhere.

It is a book of short stories—my own contribution to a growing body of living- and counter-archival projects that see domestic, diasporic space as a repository of untold histories. Organized by the rooms where each story takes place, the book focuses on the subtle moments of inheritance—when new knowledge about a distant place is passed down across generations—during long car rides or over coffee in the garden. Alongside each page of text is a page of found objects, photographs, or drawings which connect fading memories to the material world.

As I collect, catalogue, and document the artifacts of a place I have never been, I share my discoveries of a non-methodical methodology for researching far-away and no-longer-existent architectures. It is an attempt to reframe where knowledge retrieval takes place; all while working from home, in exile and errantry.