Join us in partnership with MACFEST Muslim Arts and Culture Festival for a panel event celebrating International Women's Day 2025.
Dr Jenna Ashton, Mahboobeh Rajabi, Nusrat Ahmed and Dr Saskia Warren will discuss the theme 'accelerating action' with a particular focus on the role of heritage, arts and culture for accelerating women's equality and social justice. This will be discussed in the context of the UN's latest update report on the lack of progress around SDG5 on gender equality and women's empowerment, and the increasing threats to women's bodily autonomy and implementation of discriminatory legislation.
Jenna's latest book 'Handbook of Heritage and Gender' is published that month, and has very related topics that will be discussed on gender and the heritage sector; the role of heritage, arts and cultures for accelerating women's equality and social justice.
Chaired by:
Dr Jenna Ashton
Dr Jenna C. Ashton is a Senior Lecturer in Heritage Studies, with a background in artmaking and writing, exhibition curation, creative producing, public engagement, and arts-education. Her multi-method and interdisciplinary research focuses on community-based practices, knowledges, economies, and critical literacies (also sometimes described as "living heritage" or "intangible cultural heritage").
Specific interests and contributions include:
Political ecology of community environmental action and resilience
Land stewardship and civic ecologies of restoration and care
Economies and practices of food and resource gathering and sharing
Multispecies community-making and expression
Bereavement and grief practices for non-human losses
Vibrant materiality and material literacies
Gendered practices and networks of action
Imaginary and embodied geographies
Models of andragogy and pedagogy for heritage management and reflexive praxis.
Jenna is the Research Lead for Creative and Civic Futures for the research platform Creative Manchester, an Associate Member of the University of Manchester Sustainable Consumption Institute, and Member of the University of Manchester's Manchester Urban Institute. Externally, she is a member of the RGS Animal Geographies Working Group.
Panellists:
Mahboobeh Rajabi
Mahboobeh Rajabi is an award winning Creative Entrepreneur, Artist, Cultural Leader and creative producer from Manchester. She has been working in the UK and internationally since 2010, working with different communities and cultures. Her mission is to give a platform to untold stories and give voices to the unheard voices through the language of art and building creative sustainable businesses for communities.
Dr Saskia Warren
Dr Saskia Warren is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Manchester. She recently held a Parliamentary Research Fellowship (POST), UK Parliament, working on equality, diversity and inclusion in the Heritage Collections (2021-23). From 2017-2021 she held an Arts and Humanities Research Council Leadership Fellowship, Geographies of Muslim Women and the UK Cultural and Creative Economy. From this research, she co-curated the contemporary art and textile exhibition ‘Beyond Faith: Muslim Women Artists Today’, at The Whitworth, Manchester (2019-20) and published the book, British Muslim Women in the Cultural and Creative Industries, with Edinburgh University Press. Her international research and consultancy have been published in books, articles and reports.
Nusrat Ahmed
After 25 years’ experience within the voluntary sector, Nusrat joined Manchester Museum in 2019 and is now the lead Curator for the South Asia Gallery. A British Museum Partnership spanning over five years opening to global acclaim in February 2023. A ground-breaking project uniquely co-curated with a collective group of 30 co-curators, whose stories come together to make up the first permanent gallery in the UK, to celebrate the experiences and contribution of the South Asian diaspora.
The multiple award-winning South Asia Gallery is increasingly being recognised as an exemplar model for working. Nusrat shares her learning of co-curation, presenting at national and international platforms, across heritage and higher educational settings. In 2024 as recognition for her work, the University of Manchester awarded her with the Distinguished Achievement Award.
Nusrat actively promotes social justice and is passionate about driving forward conversation around representation, inclusion, care, and other social justice issues. She has fundamentally shifted who belongs in Manchester Museum and continues to change the wider cultural landscape.
As a first-generation British born South Asian, Nusrat has a close attachment to her heritage and is extremely proud of her role.
