Previous recipients
Since 2019, the Baba Shaam Singh Sevapanthi Scholarship has been supporting people with an interesting in studying courses or conducting research which broadly relates to the conservation of Sikh heritage.
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Cecilia Duminuco (2019)
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Cecilia received a scholarship in 2019 to attend part of the Montefiascone Summer School where she attended the course on an 18th Century Sikh binding led by Jasdip Singh and Sukhraj Singh. A full summary of her experience can be found here.
Surjit Singh (2019)
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Surjit Singh began studying for an MA in Conservation at the National Museum Institute (New Delhi) in 2018, after developing an interest in the conservation of Sikh manuscripts and printed texts. The scholarship helped fund a study trip to the UK where Surjit Singh was able to complete the following courses and placements:
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1. London Rare Book School:The Medieval Book (Dr Michelle Brown)
This course gave an overview of Medieval book traditions in the European context.
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2. Victoria Stevens Conservation
Surjit spent time with Victoria Stevens learning about the preventive conservation of historic book collections at Winchester Cathedral. Surjit also learned about a number of fundamental paper conservation techniques including cleaning, humidification and different aspects of adhesive preparation.
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3. Codex Conservation
Codex Conservation is a private studio managed by Ann-Marie Miller. Here, Surjit learnt about the processes involved in re-sewing a case-bound book and also produced a model of a robust case-binding.
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4. Oxford Conservation Consortium (OCC)
The OCC has a team of conservators with a diverse variety of expertise. Surjit learnt about many aspects of book repair with a particular focus on the history of bookbinding. At historic Oxford collections such as Trinity College and Merton College, Surjit was given the opportunity to study historic book structures dating from the medieval to the modern period. Surjit also honed his paper conservation techniques on college documents under the supervision of OCC conservators.
Jaswinder Kaur (2019)
Jaswinder Kaur received a scholarship which helped her to attend the 'Alchemy of Colour' at the Prince's School of Traditional Arts. The knowledge she gathered and shared has helped develop a better understanding of the historic natural colours used in Gurmukhi manuscripts. An insightful summary of one aspect of the course can be found here.
Priya Kapoor (2022)
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Priya Kapoor received a scholarship to help her attend the Society of Bookbinders Conference at the University of Bath in 2022. As an art conservator who sometimes has to repair books and manuscripts of the Sikh tradition, this helped her develop a better understanding of historic and contemporary book structures.
Keerat Kaur Garcha​ (2023)
Keerat Kaur received a scholarship to help her to attend a 'Film Preservation and Restoration Workshop' held at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalya' in Mumbai in 2023. This helped Keerat Kaur expand her understanding of the conservation of different types of film and photographic media.