Shreen Mohamed Amin Taher

Biography

Shreen Mohamed Amin Taher is the Director of the Children’s Museum at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. She holds degrees and has a research background in translation, Egyptology and cultural heritage management.

Her current work involves developing, delivering, and evaluating programmes and events for classes, groups, or individuals to engage those who may not normally visit to the museum, such as hard-to-reach young people, young children, older people, and families. In addition, Shreen in responsible for acquiring, caring for, developing, displaying, and interpreting a collection of Egyptian Museum artifacts in order to inform, educate, and inspire the public, as well as developing training programs for Egyptian museums and heritage professionals in Egypt.

On top of her role as Director of the Children’s Museum, Shreen was assigned as Head of the main museum’s Education Departments at the Ministry of Tourism & Antiquities in April 2019. She is also in charge of university engagement programmes at the Cultural Administration and Ministry of Tourism & Antiquities.

From 2022-2023 Shreen participated as a Project Coordinator between the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, Egyptian universities, and a lecturer at the ReHeEd project (Reframing Heritage Education in Egypt). The main aim of the project is to redevelop heritage education in Egypt by creating a generation of qualified specialists in heritage education in different aspects of heritage studies, a discipline that is of extreme importance in Egypt. Moreover, it aims to develop research in the field of heritage education by introducing new technologies for documenting, preserving, presenting, and interpreting heritage collections, co-funded by the European Unison Erasmus+ Programme.

Shreen has a Ph.D in interpretation strategies of industrial heritage in the museums of Egypt from Helwan University. She also works as a visiting lecturer at the Helwan University Egypt Faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management, Heritage and Museums Department. And is also a postdoctoral researcher at UNESCO / Kingdoms Institute: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – AlUla Fellowships Programme.

Shreen is a heritage professional, Egyptologist and translator, with many experiences in different fields including previously working as curator of the Middle Kingdom department of the Egyptian Museum. Shreen is eager to share her ITP experiences with others, believing this method to be a powerful social learning strategy.

In 2017, she presented research at various conferences including City Museums in Egypt as Places for Human Respect at the CAMOC (ICOM), The Role of Museums in Keeping Tradition: Case Study, Nubian Museum in Egypt at the CEPIC, and Heritage Education for Children’s Mummification Workshop Approaches at the 1st Virtual Heritage International Conference, Cairo.

In 2019, Shreen attended the ICOM 25^th General Assembly in Kyoto, Japan. There she gave a presentation on the education approaches of the Egyptian Museum.

At the British Museum
During her time on the International Training Programme in 2016, Shreen was based in the Department of Egypt and Sudan. Her UK Partner Museum was Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums, Newcastle.

In 2016 participants were asked to work with departmental mentors to develop a proposal for an Asahi Shimbun Display – a temporary exhibition in Room 3 at the British Museum, based around a single ‘spotlight’ object.  Shreen’s exhibition project proposal was entitled Tones of the Past.

Shreen’s place on the International Training Programme was generously supported by the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust.

Legacy Projects
In October 2016 Shreen presented at the conference and workshop Learning, Engagement and Museums hosted by Hayk Mkrtchyan (ITP 2014, Armenia) at Cafesjian Centre for the Arts in Yerevan, Armenia. Shreen used her experiences at the Children’s Museum to deliver a case study on children’s learning to ITP Fellows, UK partners and museum educators in Armenia. She was also a member of the working group Families against War.

Shreen successfully submitted a paper for the British Museum’s Annual Egyptological Colloquium, Displaying Egypt. With the support of the ITP she returned to the British Museum in July 2018 to deliver her paper, reconnect with colleagues and establish new working relationships.

In 2020, Shreen attended the International Training Programme’s series of online subject specialist sessions. Shreen attended:
Collecting COVID-19
The Samarkand Half Marathon, cultural accessibility and ‘going digital’ during COVID-19
Skill-Sharing Workshop: Interpretation and Label Writing
Egyptology in Lockdown: Connecting collections with isolated people

In 2022 Shreen was awarded an ITP Conference Grant to speak at the International Council of Museums Prague conference which she did online.

ITP Newsletter Publications
ITP Newsletter Issue 5 (2018), Learning and engagement: Children’s Museum of the Egyptian Museum
ITP Newsletter Issue 6 (2019), Connectivity in the 21st century: making collections accessible, Digital marketing at Egyptian museums
ITP Newsletter Issue 8 (2021) How museums in Egypt are responding to COVID-19: safety measures
ITP Newsletter Issue 8 (2021) Collection in focus: Stela of the Artisan Bay and the universal value of the Egyptian Museum