Sujata Prasad is an author, curator, art columnist and heritage conservationist. Her work and research interest is at the intersection of community health, rural livelihoods, and the visual and performing arts. A former civil servant, Sujata serves as an expert on Government of India’s Scientific Advisory Committee for Heritage Research. She is also the founder of Ahad Anhad – a forum for creative instigations – which manifested its first edition at the Bihar Museum recently, bringing together words, ideas, performances and the liveliest voices in contemporary writing.
Sujata has spent most of her early life on the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, where her father taught international relations and mother was a writer. She studied at St Stephen’s College and JNU in the 1970s. She later took courses at the School of Public Health at Harvard University, the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University, and the Australia-New Zealand School of Government. She was also mentored by maestros like Uma Shankar Mishra and Uma Sharma and continues to partner with musician Vidya Shah to create musical narratives on Gandhian movements.
Her journey as a civil servant that began in 1983 included assignments in diverse central ministries and departments, and a long stint with the Government of Bihar. She also served on the advisory board of the National Crafts Museum, the governing body of the Sports Authority of India and the board of governors of the Nehru Yuva Kendra and was the government-nominated director of companies like Coal India, Neyveli Lignite Corporation, Hindustan Copper, Hindustan Zinc, and the Bharat Aluminium Company. More recently she has served as advisor to the National Gallery of Modern Art.
Sujata continues to work with policy oriented institutions such as the Institute for Human Development and is currently on its board of Governors. A member of the Asia-Pacific chapter of the World Crafts Council, she is closely associated with two not-for-profit organisations working for the disadvantaged and is a passionate animal rights crusader.
Her debut biography A Life Like No Other was published in 2017 (Penguin Random House). She has co-authored a volume on Health Security and written a novella for children. Her recent publications include The Dream of Revolution, a biography of Jayaprakash Narayan (Penguin Random House, 2021), and an essay on Rahul Sankrityayan in Mystics and Sceptics in Search of Himalayan Masters (Harper Collins, 2023). She has curated exhibitions on modernism in Indian art for the National Gallery of Modern Art and is the founding editor of the Art Journal published by NGMA and other important publications on visual and performing arts. She has curated an Art Appreciation Workshop in collaboration with India International Centre (July 2022) - and continues to host diverse monthly conversations there with artists, filmmakers, actors, directors, writers and media experts to explore varied forms of artistic expression.