Sampad South Asian Arts and British Council India publish a brand new collection of winning entries from their latest ‘Inspired by…’ series, following a tremendous response to their major international writing competition.
Sampad South Asian arts and British Council India have announced the launch of a brand new collection of short stories, poems and reportage which form the winning entries to their major international writing competition, ‘Inspired by my Museum’.
To mark the publication of the anthology, a special event took place last week in the prestigious setting of the Indian High Commission in London.
Mr Prashant Pise, Head of Chancery welcomed esteemed guest speakers Piali Ray OBE (Director of Sampad South Asian Arts), Chitra Sundaram (respected dance artist and Fellow of the Royal Society), Andy Howell (Honorary Member of the Sampad Board) and C.B Patel (Publisher/Editor, ABPL Group) along with more than 30 of the writers who had submitted winning entries.
After a thought-provoking talk by Chitra Sundaram examining the theme of ‘inspiration’, selected readings from the ‘Inspired By’ series were delivered by actors Dharmesh Rajput and Hermione Sethi.
Pioneering writer and broadcaster, Shyama Perera later presented the winning writers with their personal copies of the anthology, which revealed the name of overall winning entry from the UK, along with the Outstanding and Highly Commended entries.
The Inspired by my Museum competition had invited budding writers, aged 16 and over, from around the world to record and share their personal reactions, connections or experiences inspired by a visit to a museum. Participants had the opportunity to respond to a museum space, architecture, design, a specific object or objects within a museum, or even a museum/exhibition curator.
480 entries were received from 32 countries around the world including India, Canada, Croatia, Ukraine and New Zealand. Writers took their inspiration from a diverse range of museum, both large and small, including Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, BMAG (UK), the Victoria & Albert Museum, V&A (London), the Indian Museum (Kolkata), the Museum of Broken Relationships (Croatia), the Slave Trade Museum (Nigeria), the BATA Shoe Museum (Canada) and the Museum of Folk Architecture and Life (Ukraine).
The partners launched Inspired by my Museum following the resounding success of their previous collaboration ‘Inspired by Tagore’ which celebrated the 150th birth anniversary of influential poet/writer, Rabindranath Tagore and triggered more than 1,500 entries from 37 countries across the world.
At the end of last week’s event at India House, under the striking portrait of Mahatma Gandhi in the Gandhi Hall, Director of Sampad, Piali Ray and C.B Patel fittingly took the opportunity to announce the next international writing competition in the series as ‘Inspired by Gandhi’,
Further details about this competition and the related fundraising campaign will be released in January 2015. The Inspired by my Museum and Inspired by Tagore publications are available to buy via www.sampad.org.uk from December 2014.
