Sanatkada Trust is the force powering Lucknow Bioscope. Since 2007, Sanatkada has worked to carve a niche for Lucknow’s rich and syncretic legacies through discussions, exhibitions, performances, recitals, seminars, and workshops - including restoration works for the iconic ghazal singer Begum Akhtar’s tomb.
For the past 17 years, Sanatkada has also hosted the Mahindra Sanatkada Lucknow Festival, drawing hundreds of thousands to experience Lucknow and the myriad aspects of its culture.
Incorporated in 2019, Sanatkada Trust was established to accommodate the expanding non-profit vision of Sanatkada and to better administer a growing scope of activities in Lucknow and the Awadh region.
Sanatkada Trust has been at the forefront of conservation and cultural stewardship efforts in the city for more than a decade thus, earning a name among artists, connoisseurs, historians, scholars, and visitors. Sanatkada Trust’s expertise in the field and commitment to fair and inclusive cultural practices, situates it uniquely in the museum ecosystem.
Lucknow Bioscope, a visionary initiative, seeks to build upon this legacy by becoming a dynamic museum dedicated to celebrating the syncretic essence of Lucknow. Through tangible artefacts and intangible treasures, it will capture the city's rich heritage and offer public access to both known and undiscovered treasures. By fostering research, preservation, communication, and exhibition of Lucknow's unique heritage within historical and contemporary contexts, Lucknow Bioscope will serve as the first museum dedicated to the spirit of Lakhnaviyat.
Together, Sanatkada Trust and Lucknow Bioscope are poised to continue their invaluable contributions to the cultural landscape of our city, ensuring that the essence of Lucknow's heritage is preserved and celebrated for generations to come.
Founder of Vanangana, Sadbhavna Trust, Sanatkada, and Lucknow Bioscope
Madhavi Kuckreja is the founder of Vanangana, an NGO that works on issues of violence against women; Sadbhavana Trust, a community based development organisation that promotes grassroot interventions, social justice, and empowerment of women and girls; and Sanatkada, a weaves and craft organization that has now bloomed into a full five-day festival along with Lucknow Bioscope, a city museum of culture. She has been working for more than three decades now and has dedicated her life for the upliftment of women and preservation of Lucknowi culture.
Educationist
Noor Khan is an educationist and retired as the principal of Karamat Husain Muslim Girls’ PG College, Lucknow. She has been a core team member of Sanatkada since its inception. She has documented the tangible and intangible heritage of Lucknow and shared it with the city and its people. Noor Khan is one of the organizers of the Awadhi Home Cooked Festival and is one of the curators and editors of the Sanatkada cookbook, Lucknowi Bawarchi Khane: Food From Lucknow Homes.
Scientist
Dr. Saman Habib is Chief Scientist at the CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow where she works on infectious diseases. A molecular biologist by training, her research is focused on malaria. She is a Fellow of all the three science academies of the country and is a JC Bose National Fellow. Dr. Habib also presents dramatised readings and is interested in documentation of oral history and crafts practices. She is an old associate of Sanatkada.
The Art Institute of Chicago
Madhuvanti Ghose is the inaugural Alsdorf Associate Curator of Indian, Southeast Asian and Himalayan Art at the Art Institute of Chicago where she is responsible for the exhibition, collection, preservation and research of the museum’s permanent collections in these areas. Since joining the museum in 2007, she has curated and organized a series of exhibitions on various aspects of Indian art.
She led the Vivekananda Memorial Program for Museum Excellence (2012–16) designed to foster professional exchanges between the Art Institute and various museums in India. In 2020/21, she organized virtual workshops on museum curation for the American Institute of Indian Studies, supported by the US Mission to India. Ghose has served until recently on the board of trustees of the American Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) and is the recipient of the Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL) fellowship (Class of 2020).
Independent Writer and Activist
Farah Naqvi is a writer and social activist, with over 30 years of work on democracy, development and social justice, from direct grassroots engagement with rural communities to policy formulation at the highest levels of government. Her work in media and communication includes writing, public speaking, television broadcast, and documentary film-making. She has authored two books - Waves in the Hinterland (2008) about an award-winning newspaper created by Dalit women journalists and Working with Muslims: Beyond Burqa and Triple Talaq (2018) about civil society engagement with India’s largest minority.
Architectural Historian, Conservation Architect and Author
Neeta Das, an academician in practise, is a graduate in Architecture from CEPT, India and a post graduate in Architectural History, Criticism, & Pedagogy, USA with a Ph.D. from SPA Delhi/ Lucknow University. Das has authored and co-authored several books on architectural history and their conservation. With a teaching career of over three decades, she is currently based in Kolkata. Her work emphasizes the holistic and sustainable conservation of old buildings and urban precincts by helping re-align them with the mainstream systems and developments.
Iqbal Kidwai is a film producer who has worked extensively with director Feroze Khan. His numerous productions include the well-known film Khamosh Pani. Iqbal has worked on feature films, documentaries, and commercials across various formats.
Vice-President, Head – Cultural Outreach at the Mahindra Group.
Jay is Vice-President, Head – Cultural Outreach at the Mahindra Group. Cultural Outreach by a Corporate house is a relatively new concept and Jay is one of the few industry professionals championing this idea. He helms several projects in the culture space including– Mahindra Theatre Festival and the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards in New Delhi, The Mahindra Blues Festival in Mumbai, The Mahindra Sanatkada Lucknow Festival in Lucknow. Mahindra Kabira Festival in Varanasi. The Mahindra Cultural Outreach portfolio has recently added 3 new festivals: Mahindra Percussion in Bengaluru, Mahindra Roots and Mahindra Independence Rock in Mumbai. In addition to these, Jay uses Culture to propagate essential messages and build a sense of connection and common ethos between the over 200,000 employees of the Mahindra Group.
Jay is the recipient of the Summer Fellowship for International Arts Managers by the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center, Washington DC. Jay is also the recipient for the Chevening Scholarship given by United Kingdom’s Foreign Office for the Manager’s for Leadership Course at the University of Leeds. Jay was invited to the Edinburgh Fringe by the British Council as part of a cultural delegation.
Sarover Zaidi is a social anthropologist, teacher and writer. She works at the intersections of critical theory, anthropology, art, architecture and material culture studies. She has extensively worked on religious architecture, and urbanism in the city of Bombay and currently co-runs a site on writing the city called Chiragh Dilli (https://chiraghdilli.wordpress.com). Previously she has worked on rural development, with a focus on health, education, and women's rights across India. Her current research focuses on religious iconography and images in the contexts of Islam & and also politics of architecture and modernist architectural histories. She has received the Max Planck fellowship, the INTACH fellowship, the IFA fellowship and the Khoj fellowship for her research interests. Besides this she also curates an interdisciplinary forum on art, architecture and anthropology, 'Elementary forms' and has previously taught at the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi. She volunteers at the Muslim Women's Forum for the past five years, and has recently been teaching at Sewagram, Wardha. She currently teaches at the Jindal School of Art and Architecture, Sonipat India.
Entrepreneur
An IIM Calcutta alumnus (class of 2003) with corporate experience at Coca Cola and Nokia from 2003-06. Co-founder of Hector Beverages, renowned for the Paper Boat brand, producing traditional Indian beverages. Co-founded ChannelPlay, considered India's largest retail marketing company. Co-founder and CEO of Misters.in, a groundbreaking men's confidence company.
Independent Researcher and Designer
Paola Manfredi has lived in South Asia for over forty years and has specialized in Indian textiles art history and particularly in Chikankari from Lucknow and Aari embroideries.
Among several other essays she has authored the book “Chikankari, a Lucknowi Tradition”, published by Niyogi Books in 2017, the Handbook “Turpai, Jawa, Daraz and other ornamental seams in chikankari and in muslin dress making”, published in Lucknow in 2022 and “Chikankari from Lucknow: In search of perfection”, published in Threads & Voices: Behind the Indian Textile Tradition. Edided by Laila Tyabji Marg Publication, 2007.
She is currently living between Milano and Lucknow, documenting muslin dress making and chikankari complex technicalities. She is working on building an archive, both tangible and virtual, that can provide today’s artisans, designers and interested people with awareness, knowledge and exposure to the excellence of this craft.
She believes it is important to make historical resources widely available not only as testimony of this rich cultural and technical heritage, but also as source of knowledge and inspiration to challenge and expand the boundaries of this tradition.
Historian and Author
Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones, MBE, studied Urdu and Hindi at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She was awarded a first-class honours degree and completed her PhD there, which was subsequently published as A Fatal Friendship: The Nawabs, the British and the City of Lucknow in 1985. She visits the subcontinent as frequently as possible and was an invited speaker at a recent Jaipur Literature Festival. She has been the archivist at the Royal Society for Asian Affairs for ten years and a Council Member of the Royal Asiatic Society. She was awarded an MBE in 2015 for services to the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA) and British Indian studies.
Padma Shri Awardee, Cardiologist, and Founder of Lari Hospital at the Medical College
Mansoor Hasan Khan, is an Indian cardiologist, known for his contributions towards the setting up of Lari Cardiology Centre at King George's Medical University, Lucknow. The Government of India honored Hasan in 2011, with the fourth highest civilian award of Padma Shri.
Architect, Artist and Academic
As an academic, her area of research is architecture theory. Her thesis was entitled The Idea of Infinite in 20th century Architecture. She is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Architecture, Uttar Pradesh Technical University, Lucknow.
As an artist, she has done solo shows ‘Between Spaces’ ‘Ramayana’ ‘Lucknow- ek nazar’ all over India. She has participated in many group shows with various artists. She has painted Illustrations for Circle of Love by Debashish Chatterjee for Rupa Publications; Global Emirates: An Anthology of Tolerance and Enterprise, edited by Pranay Gupte published by Motivate Publishing, Dubai; Ram Varma’s modern epic, “Before he was God: Ramayana, Reconsidered, Recreated, published by Rupa.
As an architect, she is involved with private projects like hotels, memorials, homes and interiors.
Historian and Author
Born and educated in Lucknow, Veena Talwar Oldenburg moved to the United States in 1970 and stayed on after her PhD in history to teach and share a life with Philip Oldenburg in New York. She is currently a Professor of History at Baruch College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She has written several scholarly articles and published two books, The Making of Colonial Lucknow, 1856-1877 (University of Princeton Press) and Dowry Murder: The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime (Oxford University Press, New York).
Founding CEO, Foundation for Advancing Science and Technology and Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington.
Jayant Krishna has just completed setting up the Foundation for Advancing Science and Technology as its Founding CEO, based out of New Delhi. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington, DC. Jayant had previously served in leadership roles in Prime Minister’s Skill India Mission at National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), including Chief Executive Officer, and Executive Director & Chief Operating Officer. He was the first Indian to be appointed as the Group CEO of UK India Business Council (UKIBC). He has been the Executive Director, Public Policy at WF, a leading Silicon Valley non-profit; and worked on economic reforms that trigger job creation in India. Most of his diverse experience of over 36 years, spanning government, industry, and consulting, was with the Tata Group in key roles at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), including Director, Life Sciences & Healthcare, Regional Director (UK & Ireland), Regional Manager (London), Global Delivery Centre Head, and Global Relationship Manager for one of TCS’ top 5 accounts. He has served as a Management Consultant in a division of Tata Sons and handled some of the Tata Group’s key CSR, TAS HR, communications, business excellence & sustainability initiatives. Jayant studied at the University of Leeds as a British Chevening Scholar. He is also a Fellow of the AIMA and CSI and on the Boards of several companies & institutions. He received the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Award for Innovation in Governance, 2016.
Historian
Nimra is a historian of Early Modern and Modern South Asia. She is particularly interested in eighteenth and nineteenth century histories of colonialism, material culture, knowledge production and circulation of ideas and objects. Her doctoral research read power, culture and value through circulation of objects in Awadh from 1720 to 1857. As a British Academy post doctoral fellow at University College London, Nimra studied the loot in Awadh during the Uprising of 1857, as a transformative moment for object histories in South Asia. The title of the project is Multiple Lives of Indian Objects: Material Culture and Knowledge Production in Early Modern South Asia. Nimra is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of History, University College London.
Nimra is interested in Public Histories and led the research unit for the Mahindra Sanatkada Lucknow Festival (MSLF) from 2012 – 2020. She also served as the Co-Director for the MSLF during the same period. Nimra is also a trustee for Sadbhavana Trust, a grassroots organisation that works with Muslim and Dalit adolescent girls and women in Lucknow.
Writer, Performer, Educator
She has written and directed short films, among them a biopic on BKS Iyengar. Embracing multiple performance forms, she has performed at premiere literature festivals in India and abroad and has her own audio and video online channels. Among the performance forms she is adept at, is Dastangoi, the revived art of ancient Urdu storytelling.
