Shillong, May 16 : Sahapedia, an open online encyclopedic resource on art and culture has embarked upon an ambitious museum mapping project in India. On May 18, Sahapedia is set tocelebrate International Museum Day through its ‘Museums of India’ and ‘India Heritage Walk’ programmes.
The aim of these programmes is to raise public awareness about museums as repositories of history and culture and as dynamic and inclusive spaces for dialogue among diverse communities.
The theme of International Museum Day (IMD) 2019 is ‘Museums as Cultural Hubs. The Future of Tradition’. Sahapedia’s programmes, spanning 13 cities, will be held from May 17–24, and include museum walks, Anubhutis (experiences curated for persons with disabilities and underprivileged children) and Baithaks (talks by experts). These events will be held in partnership with a number of social, cultural and not-for-profit organisations.
For the online audience, Sahapedia will host a #MeraMuseum contest on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook till May 19. It will also host Tweet Chats as well as Facebook and Instagram Live sessions with experts from different domains, encouraging conversations on museums.
For instance, Medhavi Gandhi, founder of The Heritage Lab, Chandigarh will participate in an Instagram Live from Chandigarh Museum. ‘The primary role of a museum is to collect, preserve and exhibit antiquities and artefacts.
Now, in a vastly globalised world, museums have also emerged as a dynamic space for cultural exchange and enrichment,’ said Vaibhav Chauhan, Secretary, Sahapedia. ‘Our aim is to trigger interest among people to not only understand their histories and traditions through artefacts and knowledge conserved by museums across the country, but also make them vital stakeholders in the preservation and transmission of their heritage.
Additionally, we are hoping to encourage communities to re-take control over their own heritage, in a bid to bring ecological and cultural sustainability and responsibility to each one of our doorsteps,’ he added.
Spread across a week, the events will be kicked off on May 17 with a heritage walk at the Archive of North Indian Classical Music at Jadavpur University in Kolkata. The celebration will end with a Baithak in Guwahati on May 24 where archaeologist Sanathana Y.S. will speakon the subject ‘Temple Walls as Exhibition Spaces, Symbolism in Indian Temple Architecture’ at Assam State Museum.
On May 18, a total of 12 heritage walks have been planned in cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Mumbai, Kochi, Chandigarh, Bengaluru, Nagpur, Shillong and Patiala. Some of the museums involvedin these walks are: National Museum, Delhi; Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai; Indian Museum, Kolkata; Antiques Museum, Patiala; Kamal War Museum, Shillong; and Architecture Museum, Chandigarh. One heritage walk has been planned on May 19 at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune.
In South India, on May 18, Kochi will host a heritage walk at Kerala Museumwhile Bengaluru will host one at Central Library. As part of its Anubhuti initiative, Sahapedia has curated programmes for underprivileged children at the Partition Museum in Amritsar, and for the visually impaired at Drishyakala Museum in Delhi on May 18.
Four Baithaks will be organised in New Delhi, Kolkata and Guwahati. Among these is a panel discussion on ‘Bengal’s Forgotten Museums: Reconnecting the Past with the Present’ with Professor Tapati Guha-Thakurta (Centre for Studies in Social Sciences)as the lead speaker, and Dr Sraman Mukherjee (Ashoka University) and Dr Rituparna Basu (Bijoy Krishna Girls College) as part of the panel.
In another Baithak, scheduled at the National Rail Museum in New Delhi, Dr Anand Burdhan will deliver a talk on ‘Colonial Museums: An Inner History’. Sahapedia’s ‘Museums of India’ project (www.museumsofindia.org) aims to create an all- inclusive digital resource of all the museums in the country. The website is a dynamic digital platform where audiences can view consolidated information about museums and interact with museum professionals as well.
So far, over 295 museums in 33 Indian cities have been documented. These include tier 2 and tier 3 cities such as Varanasi, Ranchi, Ajmer, Imphal, Vadodara, Patna, Lucknow, Allahabad and Pune.
