Sona Datta

Sona Datta is a museum curator and art historian with a background in research, exhibitions, and developing of original projects. At King's College, University of Cambridge, she earned her degree. She was fluent in many languages, including German, Bengali, Tamil, and Sanskrit. She conducted various studies on South Asian visual culture, Jamini Roy and the emergence of modernism in Indian art, contemporary art from Pakistan, the impact of Partition on the visual arts, and how art engages with modernity in South Asia's post-1947 terrain. She has a fantastic collection that links contemporary collecting to the British Museum's historic holdings by acquiring modern art from Pakistan and the Pakistani Diaspora, reshaping how the British Museum engages with contemporary South Asian art. She also contributed to the co-curating of two exhibitions: Ritual & Revelry:

The Art of Drinking in Asia (2009) and Paintings of Jodhpur (2009). Among her grants and honors is one from the Art Fund. A curatorial project between the British Museum and the National College of Arts, Lahore, has been awarded the Jonathon Ruffer Curatorial Grant (2013-2014). She expanded the acclaimed Modern Asian collections at the Peabody Essex Museum (2014–2016) to include the best contemporary art referencing all of South Asia while serving as head of the South Asia collections there. Sponsors from three continents are drawn to the development committee, spearheaded by its shared strategy and development goals.

South Asian activities were included in the larger PEM Present Tense Initiative. In 2014, she worked on a three-part BBC4 series on India and Pakistan, which is currently being watched by more than 90 million people worldwide. Michelangelo was the subject of an episode on BBC4 Art. She has media specialties in spoken word & performance poetry, corporate, documentary, e-learning, narration, radio, and voice direction.