Oral Historian · Multimedia Artist · Archive Designer
Avantika Seth is an interdisciplinary oral historian and multimedia artist designing trauma-informed oral history programs, institutional archives, and global listening initiatives.
300+ oral history interviews across four countries. Archival systems managing 200+ hours of recorded testimony. Workshops delivered to 100+ institutional partners. Davis Fellow for Peace. Published in LA Times, France 24, and Channel News Asia.
About
Avantika Seth works at the intersection of oral history, documentary film, and trauma-informed methodology — treating listening not as a soft skill, but as a rigorous scholarly and artistic practice.
Her work is grounded in the understanding that oral history is relational ethics: that every interview is a site of power, consent, and care. That silence is not absence — it is an archive requiring its own methodology.
Trained at Columbia University's Oral History Master of Arts program and shaped by a decade of fieldwork across South Asia, North America, Indonesia, and Europe, she brings institutional rigor to deeply human work. She has designed oral history frameworks for refugee communities, democracy archives, post-disaster documentation, intergenerational family histories, and labor advocacy projects.
Beyond conducting interviews, she builds systems. From research design to archival metadata, from consent protocols to documentary integration, she develops oral history infrastructures that endure beyond a single project cycle.
Her professional path bridges journalism and oral history — from reporting for France 24 and Channel News Asia, including live disaster coverage from Indonesia, to designing institutional archives at Columbia and the University of Iowa. This dual fluency in storytelling and systems thinking defines her approach.
Family oral histories hold a particular place in her practice — a distinct methodological terrain where intimacy, obligation, and intergenerational silence converge. These projects demand not only technique, but philosophical care.
Awards & Fellowships
Education
Oral History Master of Arts, 2025
Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism, New Media, 2015
Bachelor of Commerce (Honours), 2014
Work With Me
For schools, universities, museums, NGOs, corporations, foundations, and community organizations seeking to build rigorous listening capacity and ethical storytelling practice.
Avantika's workshops strengthen institutional ability to conduct trauma-informed interviews, design accountable consent frameworks, and integrate oral history into long-term memory projects. She has designed and facilitated workshops for 100+ NGO partners and trained teams across institutional, academic, and community settings.
Workshops are customizable and available in half-day, full-day, and multi-session formats. Delivered internationally, in person or remotely.
Inquire About a WorkshopFor museums, archives, foundations, universities, international NGOs, and peace initiatives requiring durable oral history infrastructure.
Avantika partners with institutions from pilot design through archival sustainability. She develops methodological frameworks, trains internal teams, structures metadata systems, and designs consent protocols that protect narrators while ensuring long-term access.
Her consulting ensures that oral history is not extractive — but structurally embedded, ethically accountable, and built to last.
Discuss a ProjectBespoke archives and documentary films for families seeking to preserve memory with museum-level care.
These projects navigate migration histories, intergenerational silences, and the intimate architecture of personal memory. Each archive is professionally recorded, catalogued, and structured for generational longevity — with the same methodological rigor applied to institutional archives.
This work is grounded in discretion, care, and archival precision.
Begin Your Family ArchiveSelected Projects
Designed and led a trauma-informed oral history framework documenting 15+ refugee resettlement narratives following the 2021 Kabul evacuation. Structured multilingual interviews, consent protocols, and archival systems for long-term institutional access. Collaborated with community organizations to identify underrepresented voices for historical documentation.
Built an accessible archive centering refugee agency and informing policy discourse at academic and civic levels.
Led oral history research, conducted life-history interviews, and oversaw transcript review and metadata production for a major institutional archive documenting Soros's impact on global democracy movements. Designed discoverability systems ensuring researcher access to 200+ hours of recorded testimony. Managed digital platforms for oral history data structuring, facilitating long-term accessibility.
Conducted and filmed over 170 interviews with survivors of the 1947 Partition across India — 100+ as Story Scholar with the 1947 Partition Archive, and 70+ through fieldwork across Maharashtra. Developed trauma-informed research approaches for elder narrators navigating intergenerational silence. Indexed and transcribed interviews for public access and exhibition integration.
Preserved living memory of one of the twentieth century's largest mass displacements — testimonies that exist nowhere else.
Conducted 50+ oral history interviews with marginalized communities and developed multimedia narratives for advocacy. Led transcription oversight and metadata tagging, ensuring interviews were accessible for public and research use. Designed and facilitated ethical oral history interviewing workshops for 100+ NGO partners.
Designed participatory oral history frameworks in the aftermath of the 2018 Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami, documenting testimonies of survivors, families, and rescue workers. Conducted live disaster reporting from Central Sulawesi for France 24. Integrated documentary film with community-based methodology to center survivor voice and shift institutional storytelling from extraction toward collaboration.
Produced 20+ multimedia news reports for France 24 Television and Channel News Asia, spanning historical documentary and live disaster coverage. Co-directed a documentary on Vietnam's role in World War I for Channel News Asia. Conducted live reporting from Indonesia and New Delhi, integrating oral history methodology with broadcast storytelling.
Led ethnographic oral history interviews documenting labor precarity and migration narratives of South Asian immigrants in NYC's gig economy. Produced digital storytelling outputs through interviews, archival research, and multimedia methods, contributing to advocacy and public awareness.
Authored a family history memoir through oral history interviews and archival material, reconstructing intergenerational memory and familial silences. Managed transcription, indexing, and metadata production. Designed and curated an interactive exhibit of letters, photographs, and personal artifacts.
Selected Publications & Media
Philosophy & Writings
This philosophy informs not only her artistic practice, but the way she designs institutional systems, trains interviewers, and structures archival consent frameworks.
Contact
Whether you represent an institution, a foundation, a university, or a family — the work begins with conversation.
Serving institutions and communities internationally across
North America, Europe, South Asia, and the Middle East.