Viscera Of The Living Past

Mallika Ahluwalia, a public policy professional from Delhi, isn바카라�t one to treat mus­eums as repositories of mothballed relics and nostalgia. Instead, her curation takes visitors through a visceral exp­erience of the past. The 35-year-old curator바카라�s project바카라�the Partition Mus­eum, housed in the historic Town Hall building in Amritsar with its arched verandahs and Venetian glass doors, does just that바카라�it hum­anises the Partition story. So, what were the objects that women treasured at that time? Textiles, diaries, books and utensils they carried as they fled their homes tell their stories. The ­agony of the immigrant exp­erience manifests itself in a Satish Gujral painting, where memory pours out on canvas like dark waves.

Creative entrepreneurs like Mallika are transforming the museum exp­erience in India. Not only are they breaking away from antiquarian structures, they are also investing in better ­research, technology, outreach and ­design. They are experimenting with various storytelling techniques바카라�from chronological approaches to narration to deliberately haphazard displays. Even though funding remains a cha­llenge, a trickle of grants from individuals and corporations has set the ball rolling for innovation. The Union culture ministry is backing new ventures, and encouraging older institutions to act as catalysts for change.  

Abhishek Ray, principal architect of the Matrika Design Collective in Mumbai, tells Outlook, 바카라�There바카라�s a major thrust in the museum sector. Earlier, bigger institutions were inv­olved in modernisation efforts, but now ind­ividuals and smaller trusts are mining cultural repositories.바카라�

The Partition Museum, born out of the Delhi-based Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust, maps the narrative arc from the days of a syncretic Punjab to the post-Partition rehabilitation of refugees. Across 14 galleries, it serves up stories about Dalit and Sindh experiences, movements across Punjab, Bengal and Assam, horrors faced by women, and fissures in families and cultures. Since its inauguration last October, a profusion of personal stories바카라�losses suffered and trials end­ured바카라�has taken the edge off the tediousness associated with India바카라�s unimaginative museums. The latter aren바카라�t merely uninspiring; one can, at best, call them dreary.

Here, refugee artefacts, art and archival materials amplify the voices of those lost in the pages of history. 바카라�We wanted to document the humanitarian tragedy, not just historical landmarks. No event has uprooted 20 million people and caused such extensive loss to life and property,바카라� says Mallika. Born in a family of Partition survivors from Lahore, she remembers how her grandmother escaped in a train wagon, taking whatever she could to rebuild her life in India. 바카라�The Partition generation is dying out. While it is important to talk about the changing contours of nation states, one can바카라�t forget the personal sufferings of people.바카라�

Indeed, the power of the Partition Museum lies in people바카라�s stories, and the objects that define their grief. A father바카라�s letter to his son harps on how religion was being used to cover up beastly acts of murder in 1948; ancient necklaces from Mohenjodaro were broken and an equal number of beads given to India and Pakistan in an ­abs­urdly matter-of-fact effort at ­equity; a wedding was solemnised on the India-Pakistan border. 바카라�We want more such stories from the subcon­tinent. The idea is to create the most comprehensive archive of Partition materials,바카라� says Mallika.

Like Mallika, new-age cultural curators are taking advantage of the mus­eum landscape in an India flush with new ideas. Rama Lakshmi, a museologist and oral historian, is the curator for the Remember Bhopal Museum, which was set up in 2014. Housed in a modest building, it tells the story of a contemporary people바카라�s movement for justice. 바카라�For too long, the history mus­eum landscape was the monopoly of the government. That바카라�s why museums bec­ame trapped in the template of pride, and difficult histories were del­iberately overlooked,바카라� she says.

Just like the Partition Museum, ­personal objects donated by survivors, such as saris, sweaters, mangalsutras and walking sticks, offer the last ­tan­gible links to those who died from the Bhopal gas leak in 1984. Oral histories serve as the narrative thread of the curatorial ideology. 바카라�These histories allow for late resurfacing of memories. Visitors have come and shared new memories of the disaster, and its horrific aftermath,바카라� says Rama.

But the story of trauma and injustice is only part of the museum바카라�s conservation efforts. It has also inspired a community of survivors to continue their fight for justice in health, environment and finance. Rama notes that Nilgiri tribal livelihood advocates, Rajasthan social health workers and other activists inspired by these social movement stories have reached out to her to set up exhibitions at their sites. In a sense, the Bhopal museum attempts to alert the larger community of curators in India about the need to acknowledge social struggles as museum-worthy.

While stories of social struggles have inspired some curators, others are rew­riting the rules on design, art and history. Tarun Thakral, founder of the Heritage Transport Museum in Gurgaon, says, 바카라�Museums should be playgrounds where history, global knowledge, art and entertainment del­ight visitors. They aren바카라�t meant to be stuffy, old places.바카라� Born of his passion for collecting antique cars, automobile memorabilia and old railway salons, the mus­eum is a tribute to the marvels of transportation. 바카라�I was moved by museums in the US and UK where the experience itself is transformative,바카라� says Tarun.

So, to give a global thrust to his project, Tarun reworked the design rules. The museum바카라�s façade is contemporary while the interiors pay tribute to the evolution of transportation in India. Spread over three acres, the artefacts are deliberately not placed chronologically. Two atriums allow obj­ects from different eras to be viewed sim­ultaneou­sly across four floors. From vintage cars parked alongside a rec­reated Indian street scene, to palanquins, bullock carts, horse carriages, camel carts and jugaad conveyance, the exh­ibits define the ecosystem of India바카라�s transportation. 바카라�We still don바카라�t have a culture of visiting museums. So, intelligent planning and interactive displays were important to chart a change,바카라� says Tarun.

The rewriting of design rules isn바카라�t limited to museums in north India. The Telangana government바카라�s Tribal Cultural Research and Training Institute initiated the Sri Sammakka Saralamma Tribal Museum at Medaram this January, with support from volunteers. It presents the cult-ure of Koyas바카라�one of the largest tribal communities in Telangana and adjoining states. The flaming-red circular edifice capped by tribal headgear is a far cry from brick-and-mortar museums. The walls are laden with indigenous art. 바카라�Most of the museums in India are archaeological in nature, but people want to understand tribal culture in a tactile way,바카라� says Satya­narayana Dyavanapalli, the mus­eum바카라�s curator. The tribal people바카라�s knowledge systems바카라�from home-building to food gathering and fighting environmental hazards바카라�are displayed in an interactive manner. The 400-odd artef­acts and life-size installations point to the tribal instinct for survival, development and community well-being.

While some curators reimagine physical spaces, others go bey­ond that for a transformative experience. The Conflictorium, housed in the home and studio of Bachuben Nagarwala, Ahmedabad바카라�s first professionally trained hairstylist, provokes conversations on conflict not only outside but within. The museum바카라�s physical space, with four experiential galleries and a timeline tracing Gujarat바카라�s violent history since 1960, is only part of its focus. More holistically, it seeks to promote the acc­eptance of conflict as necessary to human refinement. Avni Sethi, founder-director of Conflictorium, says, 바카라�Can we imagine a utopia without confl­ict? Conflict proves we are alive. How a society manages it reveals its maturity.바카라�

Drawing inspiration from the Museum of Innocence in Istanbul, Avni thinks art practice doesn바카라�t merely att­empt the symptomatic. Instead, it lets people enter an internal landscape where engagement with ideas such as emp­athy, identity, class, gender, disagreement and remembrance occurs. By sparking engagement at a conceptual level, the Conflictorium breaks down conventional notions of what a museum should be. So, the Gallery of Disputes for instance, uses sounds, props, shadows and animations to ­explain conflict in the human world through an Orwellian lens. The Memory Lab, a community art installation, allows people to express their ­innermost thoughts.

The tangible experience is carried forward into exhibitions, film screenings, poetry readings, workshops and performances. Since 2013, over 300 events have taken place at the mus­eum, attracting 50,000 visitors. 바카라�It바카라�s a process of catharsis. You start off with conflict at large, and end with conflict with the self or other,바카라� says Shamini Kothari, a researcher at Conflictorium.

Like the Ahmedabad experiment, the Heritage Boats of Bengal Museum in Calcutta, a tribute to the dying craft of boat-making in Bengal, doesn바카라�t make much of physical space. To the contrary, it neglects it altogether by providing no information kiosks, manuals or labels for the 46 exhibits painstakingly crafted by the 15 artisans from Bengal바카라�s Dinajpur district. But the idea is unique and the craftsmanship intricate. It was conceptualised by Dr Upendranath Biswas, a former minister for backward class welfare in the Bengal government, back in 2012.

Biswas wanted to archive the mar­itime culture of a people who used boats for business, transportation and pleasure. These carriers were cus­tomised to navigate through many water bodies. 바카라�Boats are an integral part of any civilisation. For a riverine culture like Bengal바카라�s, it was necessary to document the technology, typ­ographical var­iations and knowledge traditions unique to this country.바카라�

Like the boat museum, other experiments in India too suffer from poor inf­rastructure, apathy and lack of trained professionals. They are flush with ideas but strapped for funds. Even so, the curatorial mood is upbeat. Rama says, 바카라�Several innovative and storytelling museums, within government control and outside of it, with corporate money or without it, are set to emerge in the coming years.바카라�So, what바카라�s next then? A water museum? A footwear museum? The Museum of Broken Relationships?

By Priyadarshini Sen in Amritsar