Nasreen Askari

Founder Director of the Mohatta Palace Museum, Karachi. Nasreen Askari has been responsible for the institution since 1999.

Nasreen Askari is an author, curator, and Director of the Mohatta Palace Museum in Karachi, widely regarded as one of the leading museums in South Asia. Internationally, Askari has curated exhibitions at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and the Paisley Museum in Glasgow. In 2008, she received the President of Pakistan’s Pride of Performance Award for her services and dedication to the display and documentation of the art and culture of Pakistan. As one of the most actively visited Museums in Pakistan, Nasreen Askari's aspiration for the Museum is for it to become an institution of stature where both traditional and contemporary exhibitions are held and most importantly, for it to become a platform which encourages all its visitors to view their heritage and take pride in its diversity.

Nasreen Askari is the author, co-author or editor of eight books, mostly catalogues of exhibitions she has curated either in the United Kingdom or in Pakistan. Amongst them is the seminal work on the textiles of Pakistan, Colours of the Indus: Costume and Textiles of Pakistan. The catalogue of the eponymous exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (1997-98) is still in print. Other notable publications include Visions of Divinity: The Art of Gandhara, Tale of the Tile: The Ceramic Traditions of Pakistan (reprinted) and her latest book The Flowering Desert: Textiles from Sindh (London 2019).