Ms Shireen Akbar was awarded a UK Travel Award (1992-93) when the Hamlyn South Asian Arts Education Officer, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, for the development of a handling collection for educational purposes.
Excerpt from Grokipedia – Shireen Akbar — Grokipedia
Shireen Akbar MBE (30 July 1944 – 7 March 1997) was an Indian-born British educator, artist, and curator renowned for her pioneering efforts in bridging South Asian cultural heritage with British museum institutions and communities. Born in Calcutta to a prominent Bengali Muslim family, she moved to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1957 and later relocated to the UK in 1968, where she pursued studies in English at Cambridge University and developed a career focused on arts education and community empowerment. Akbar’s professional journey began with teaching roles in Bangladesh, including at Dhaka University after earning her MA, before transitioning to youth and community work in London’s Tower Hamlets upon arriving in Britain. In 1978, she joined the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) as a youth worker specializing in Bengali girls and women, where she initiated projects like an embroidery program that produced Bengali alphabet banners exhibited at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1979. Her work emphasized cultural preservation amid racism, collecting traditional Indian and Bangladeshi artifacts for school resources, which culminated in a 1983 exhibition at the Commonwealth Institute. In 1991, Akbar was appointed South Asian Arts Education Officer at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), where she strengthened ties between the Nehru Gallery and UK South Asian communities through innovative programs. Notable initiatives included curating the “Traffic Art” exhibition of Bangladeshi rickshaw paintings at the Museum of Mankind in 1988, which later toured to Japan in 1994 with her as guest curator, and organizing a 1991 sitar concert at the V&A to fund cyclone relief in Bangladesh. She also led the Mughal Tent project, a collaborative embroidery endeavor involving women’s groups from the UK, India, and South Africa, inspired by V&A collections. In 1992, she received an India Travel Award from the Nehru Trust for Indian Collections at the V&A to develop a handling collection for educational outreach. Akbar’s artistic contributions extended to exhibitions like “Woven Air” (1988) at the Whitechapel Gallery, featuring Bangladeshi textiles and supporting women’s cooperatives, and a poetry book Kanthas in My Head (1988) co-created with local schoolchildren. She openly discussed her 1994 breast cancer diagnosis in Bengali media to destigmatize the disease among South Asian women, reflecting her commitment to empowerment. Awarded an MBE for her services to education and arts, Akbar’s legacy lies in fostering cultural fusion, inspiring marginalized groups, and integrating South Asian crafts into mainstream British cultural narratives.