Mita Pujara is an artist, researcher and educator who has a background in applied theatre, movement and performance. She has been working in the field of socially-engaged arts for over two decades. As an artist and performer she toured internationally from 1997-2008 on productions for the British Council (Kenya, Bangladesh, China, India and Palestine), the National Theatre and Pan Intercultural Arts. She delivered education and community projects for The Place, Akādemi and the British Museum. As Associate Director of Pan Intercultural Arts, she founded and ran two refugee arts programmes which still run today.
Mita moved into research and evaluation after completing her Masters in Arts, Creativity, Education and Culture (Distinction) from the the University of Cambridge. Since 2011, she has been evaluating the effectiveness of arts and cultural programmes with underrepresented communities such as asylum seekers, refugees, female survivors of tracking and young people with an experience of care. She blends creative, participatory evaluation approaches with traditional research methods to create meaningful, inclusive and bespoke evaluations. She is a guest lecturer in Arts-based Reflective Practice on several MA courses at Rose Bruford College. Other key areas of research interests include ant-racism, diversity & representation in the arts, intersectionality, feminist ethics of care and embodied practice. Mita currently lives in Leicester and in her spare time supports local creatives of colour as a board member of Aakash Odedra Dance Theatre and the Centre for Classical Indian Dance.