The International Museum Expo was held from 18 – 20th May 2023, at Pragati Maidan, Halls 2 & 3. It was inaugurated by the Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi on 18th, International Museum Day, with speeches, revelation of the Expo’s mascot – a contemporary artist’s take on the Bronze figurine from Indus Valley Civilisation – and a book called ‘Directory of Indian Museums’. The Expo was organised by the Ministry of Culture with Avid Learning, Mumbai, as the Knowledge Partner for the panel discussions. https://internationalmuseumexpo2023.com/
I was honoured to be invited by the Ministry of Culture as a speaker on International Museum Day to talk about the oral history documentation project called ‘The Museum Memories Project’ – it was found at the beginning of the Covid global lockdown that to bring the world closer through sharing of personal memories from museums visited by anyone in any corner of the globe. It is a free digital archive and resource platform of histories, heritage, cultures of all people, making them accessible and inclusive to everyone 🙂
This post is my understanding and experience of the 3 days of the Expo, as a panel speaker, museum professional and someone who was super excited to meet peers and a new younger generation creating interesting stuff for museums 🙂
The panel I was part of was called ‘Transcending Boundaries’ – what an incredibly invigorating discussion with 7 dynamic women who are creating new paradigms of museums and heritage spaces across the globe. 4 of us have founded oral history projects based out of India, mainly digital, the 1st of their kind in the world. Thank you Asad – it was encouraging to be called a pioneer and how radical we are in our work 😊 just loved your engaging questions that made us all think hard about our work, challenges and explorations of digital technology and AI, our future goals and collaborations.
Of course, I added that we need to re look at the decadent laws and policies that govern Indian museums and how independent projects like ours badly need funding and support – mainly government – else nothing will change despite investing in new museums. What do you think? Do reply in the comment section of this blog post.
My keywords for our panel ‘Transcending Boundaries’ for the future of museums: #access #inclusion #empowerment #empathy
Special thanks to Asad for complimenting my curation of the Astad Deboo retrospective as more of a museum with its multilayered narratives and not just an exhibition and requesting me to share its concept and curatorial process ♥️
The Astad Deboo retrospective was held in Mumbai from 9 – 13th December, 2022, here’s a photograph with Asad and his team from Avid Learning who had requested for a curatorial walkthrough of it 😊
Some of the other panel speakers represented museums like Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum from Mumbai, the Bihar Museum, Patna, Science Museum, Kolkata, Heritage Transport Museum, Gurgaon Gauri Parimoo Krishnan, former Director, PM Museum, Delhi, designers for Louvre, Paris, Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Some ideas and opinions raised eyebrows where the Director of a new and unknown museum said that she has to fight with her government superiors to increase the entry fee to their museum to a higher rate as she feels if people pay for a recliner seat at a PVR of 1000 INR then with better experience museum visitors will pay more – the audience gasped!
I feel that instead of taxing and placing the responsibility of running a museum upon the visitor for whom the museum has been created, museums have to figure out several approaches to financial sustainably, revenue generation and maintenance. There was a lot of discussion on financial sustainability and similar concerns.
I would have liked that the government, both central and state government agencies, had informed us regarding their long-term financial plans and the amount of money in budget allocation towards museum survival and longevity as it is a BIG concern in a post Covid world. Also, I could not find discussions on what museums in India were doing during the Covid years, their planning and income avenues that saw them survive – that would have helped in constructive learning.
Was lucky to meet Mr Anjani Kumar Singh, Director General, Bihar Museum, with whom I had the honour of working during the setting up of that museum in Patna. Also met with Dr Rima Hooja, Directory, City Palace Museum, Jaipur, a senior from our school, MGD, Jaipur.
The Expo had an exhibition of artefacts, some real and some replicas, from 18 Museums of India, curated by Gauri Parimoo. I liked that we could walk around the artefacts, there were some audio – visual installations but the space was so noisy that could hardly enjoy the audios, there was a holographic representation of the Didarganj Yakshi from the Bihar Museum. People were walking around the exhibition, left me wondering what the effect or take-away from it were… has there been a feedback by the visitors to this effort?
Special mention goes to City Palace Museum, Udaipur, where their two young assistant Curators – Dr Hansmukh Seth and Chelsea Santos – have been doing some incredible work to connect their museum to new and diverse audiences. Our project has been lucky to work with them through our initiative called ‘Museum Musafir’ where museum staff recollect their favourite artefacts, memories and spaces from their museum.
Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSe1hPGcSsM&t=12s
There were several stalls by vendors by lighting people, case makers like Glasbauhan, digital tech people making games and holographic stuff (mostly not quite aesthetic for me but there must be takers), some stalls by govt or semi govt departments doing cultural stuff.
The most popular were stalls with hands-on workshops and activities by the Conservation departments of National Museum Institute and others. The most crowded were re-creations of archaeological digs and artists painting portraits of visitors, it was full of very young people demonstrating and managing it.
I was specially shown the rice installation panel by Dr Manvi Seth, Professor and Head in the Department of Museology, National Museum Institute, Delhi. The panel is a visual illustration of names of the some of the museums from the ‘Directory of Museums’ have been inscribed on a single grain of rice!
More than anything for me, the Expo exhibited that young people are eager, enthusiastic, sincere, and kicked about Indian heritage and culture and that this country and people like us and our seniors who have dedicated their lives to this field can feel happy, there is HOPE ♥️ Gratitude to Ms Mugdha Sinha, IAS, Department of Culture, and the consultants of the department: Ramneek, Dipanwita, Nitika and Priyanshu and the brilliant team who worked tirelessly to make this Expo come true (sorry, don’t know the whole team so couldn’t name them).
There were issues with locating the venue due to lack of accurate directions, non-existent signage at the venue, mismanagement of food and tea/coffee arrangements and the usual confusion at most government functions… this was a first, definitely it will be better the next time. The mascot has become controversial as the Ministry of Culture tweeted it as a contemporary take of the ‘dancing girl figurine’ from ‘Saraswati’ Valley Civilisation, where she has been re-created with clothes on. Since there has been enough discussion on social media of it, mostly by people who have not even seen it or were present at the Expo, I will not spend time on it.
The oral history documentation project ‘The Museum Memories Project’ collectively puts the voices of the museum visitors in the mainstream, for the first time – do send us your memories of a museum you have visited anywhere in the world to museummemoriesproject@gmail.com and follow us on the Insta page of the same name 😊
Our Instagram profile is: museummemoriesproject, our website is Educational Blog | Museum Memories Project and our Youtube channel is: https://www.youtube.com/@themuseummemoriesprojectth2245
Met with Suyash Srivastava, one of the Jadughar advisors to our project, and an avid supporter who had visited the Bihar Museum and sent memories from their through photos and videos that we have shared on our Instagram page:
We are planning something for the ‘Pride Month’ through the project – keep following us for updates. Thank you 🙂
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