About EWA
Editing Women in the Archives aims to locate, collate, conserve, and provide access to endangered women’s literary, lifestyle and art publications in Pakistan.
Supported by the Pakistan Association of Women Publishers and Editors (PAWPE) and the UK’s Teesside University, and funded via TU’s Impact Acceleration Account (IAA), the project targets women-edited publications at risk of being lost to memory and to history if interventions are not made to support their preservation. It facilitates access to these materials in digitized form. At the same time, it provides a space for researchers, creative practitioners, educators and others to share information and reflect on the challenges they face when attempting to undertake and sustain vital work on women’s archives.
Brief History
Summary
The Editing Women in the Archives website and digital archive is an outcome of collaboration between the Pakistan Association of Women Publishers and Editors (PAWPE), and Teesside University, UK.
In spring 2024, four women with diverse backgrounds in writing, journalism, research, education, and creative practice: Hira Azmat, Tazeen Hussain, Mahnoor Jalal, and Veera Rustomji, worked with founding members of PAWPE – Niilofur Farrukh, Mehvash Amin, and Madeline Clements – to identify women-editing art, literary and lifestyle publications at risk of loss and in need of preservation. These included SHE: Journal for the Home and Paper magazines, NuktaArt, and a variety of books, reports and manuals published by the Simorgh Women’s Resource and Publications Centre in Lahore. The project resulted in two main outcomes: a Handbook available in print and digital form, sharing insights into the process of conducting the archival work and a snapshot of the research findings, and this archival website, through which digitised materials can be accessed.
The Team
Mehvash Amin
PROJECT LEAD
Mehvash is publisher and editor in chief of The Aleph Review. Her publishing house, Broken Leg Publications, has currently published two works besides Aleph, of which there are eight volumes. She is a Pushcart-nominated poet and a member of The Taufiq Rafat Foundation. She is also a member of PAWPE.
Madeline Clements
PROJECT LEAD
Madeline is Senior Lecturer in English Studies, Teesside University, UK. She is the author of Writing Islam from a South Asian Muslim Perspective (2015). She was PI on the AHRC-funded research network World Making Words: Connecting women’s literary agency, activism and enterprise. In 2022, with Sadia Akhtar and Maham Khan, she organised the Editing Women workshop, and co-founded PAWPE.
Niilofur Farrukh
PROJECT LEAD
Niilofur is a Karachi-based artist working in publication, curation, and public art. She has authored three books, including A Beautiful Despair: The Art and Life of Meher Afroz. She co-founded and edited NuktaArt for 10 years, served as Vice-President of the International Art Critics Association (chairing its Censorship Committee), and is a Founder of the Karachi Biennale Trust and former CEO of the Karachi Biennale.
Hira Azmat
Project Researcher
Tazeen Hussain
Project Researcher
Tazeen is Associate Professor of Practice, Communication & Design at Habib University, focusing on design education’s socio-political and environmental impact. She has led key projects, is a founder of The Karachi Collective, Chair of Design at ADA Awards, an Advisory Board member of the Gandhara Film Festival, and also works as an actor and voiceover artist.
Mahnoor Jalal
Project Researcher
Mahnoor is a Lahore-based researcher, journalist, and social media strategist. A BNU Liberal Arts graduate, she has worked with platforms like The Current and Niche Lifestyle, covering human rights, gender, culture, and education, with research interests in feminist movements, media censorship, queer theory, and South Asian history.
Veera Rustomji
Project Researcher
Veera is a Karachi-based artist with a BFA from IVS and an MFA from Chelsea College of Arts, London. Her work draws on archives and narratives to explore gender, power, and religious iconography. She has received the UAL Postgraduate International Scholarship and Mead Fellowship, collaborated with major institutions, and teaches at IVS, where she co-directs the Urban Repository Archive.
Momina Raza
Website Contributor
Momina is a Lahore-based poet with an MPhil in English Literature from Kinnaird College for Women. A finalist for the 2025–26 Pakistan Youth Poet Laureate program, her work appears in The Aleph Review, Borderless, and Jashn Anthology vol 2. Translated into Hindi in Golchakkar, her poetry explores longing, grief, desire, and identity, and she has performed at Lahore Literary Festival and Lakeer Kahaniyaan.
Nageen Shaikh
Website Contributor
Nageen is an independent book editor and art historian. She is the Associate Editor at The Karachi Collective and serves on the Board of Directors for SAVAC, Toronto. Her work examines materialities, networks, and conditions of production in artmaking. Her research and criticism have appeared in C Magazine, Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, Journal of Art & Design Education Pakistan, and Gulgee Museum: The Handbook (2025).
About PAWPE
The Pakistan Association for Women Editors (PAWPE) is a collective of women editors, publishers, writers, artists and researchers. It was founded in 2022 following the Editing Women Workshop at the Last Word Bookshop with a view to supporting the independent literary landscape in Pakistan. PAWPE aims to find sustainable solutions so magazines and publishing houses can continue to operate while maintaining financial and aesthetic autonomy.
Teesside University Impact
Acceleration Account
IAA funding has been transformational for TU research and the communities it serves, providing impact, commercialization, and media training to staff and community partners and participants, and enabling the pursuit of an ambitious trajectory of action oriented and engaged research. TU is committed to working with stakeholders in hard-to-reach and marginalized communities; with regional and national bodies; and to developing international networks. The IAA has worked closely with partners and beneficiaries to promote the benefits of arts and humanities research and to produce a portfolio of outcomes including frameworks, toolkits, and bespoke evaluation methodologies.