Programme:
Cultural Heritage - PhD
Start date:
September 2025
Mode of study:
Full time
Research title:
Editing Revolution: Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s "Lotus" and the Quest for a Shared Cultural Identity, 1978-1984
Nava is an AHRC-SGSAH funded Doctoral Researcher in Cultural Heritage. Her research interests in cultural memory, identity, print material culture and notions of being a TCK (third culture kid) are informed by her background as an artist, art historian, and curator. She has worked extensively within the arts and culture sector to collaborate and deliver various programmes, including with 421 Arts Campus (Dubai), The Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice) and as a Curatorial Fellow at Edinburgh Printmakers (Edinburgh).
Nava obtained her MSc in History of Art, Theory and Display with Distinction from the University of Edinburgh (2022), and a BA in Fine Arts with Excellency from University of Sharjah (2019). Alongside her PhD, Nava works as Implementation Member for an independent group that addresses Edinburgh's colonial legacy through Council-endorsed recommendations.
Research interests
Nava's PhD research project examines Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s editorship, from 1978-1984, of "Lotus". A trilingual political, literary magazine, Lotus connected Afro-Asian writers, promoting decolonial solidarity across the Global South. Published in English, Arabic, and French, Lotus cultivated revolution through poetry, essays, and art, becoming a unique platform connecting readership across Middle Eastern, North Africa, and South Asian (MENASA) regions. Through archival analysis, intermedial studies and digital humanities approaches, this research explores text-image relationships, translation, and cultural memory to identify recurring themes of revolution, solidarity, decoloniality, and cultural identity. Additionally, this project examines how Lotus’ digitisation transforms the journal into a reflection of digital cultural memory to foster connections across generations.
Archiving Workshop x Rummān Collective
Invited Workshop Convenor, delivered 'In the Niche: Between Digital Archives and Time Capsules.'
Part of "The Archive Is Already Home" - CDP Reflections
Royal Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England | October 2025
Conference Paper Presentation
Presented 'Eating the World: Elite Tastes in Ocean Liner Menus, 1900-1940.'
Beyond Boundaries - History of Art Postgraduate Conference.
University of Edinburgh | October 2025