Some museums in India are competing to be something new when their pandemic resumes, instead being a smaller version of what they used to be.
Open from May 2021, the Kerala Museum, which is Kochi’s oldest museum located amidst the greenery in the heart of Edapally, has become increasingly busy during the weekend. Aditi Nair says, “Having been indoors for almost two years, glued to their screens, visitors love the idea of being back in a green, open space, where they can relax and watch the kids. You can bring it too.” Director of the Museum.
However, things seem as they used to be. COVID had disastrous consequences for museums. Footfalls disappeared, revenues fell, and even the well-funded had to cut their payrolls. But it has also forced museums to rethink their fundamental purpose and identity. ‘What should a museum be like in a post-pandemic world?’ It is a question that museum directors around the world ponder.
It’s been a few months since museums in India reopened. Two key things that have helped them adapt to the post-pandemic world have been a strong digital presence and increased community engagement.
digitally strong
Spread over three buildings with 39 galleries, a personal tour of the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad takes about half a day. But now, you don’t even need to be in Hyderabad to see its huge collection. As of July this year, the museum has digitized over 47,000 of its artworks.
On October 18, it launched an audio-guide app that invokes a plug-and-play approach to a more physically distant tour. It partnered with Google Arts & Culture to showcase its flagship setups, such as Raja Ravi Varma’s ‘Disappointed’ and a comprehensive breakdown of ‘Indian Epics in Art’, which includes folk paintings from the Chitrakathi tradition of Paithan, Maharashtra. Huh.
Salar Jung was not the only museum to collaborate with Google Arts and Culture. For example, the Museum of Art and Photography (MAP) in Bengaluru has 12 exhibitions. Though the launch of MAP was postponed till 2022, it has been hosting several online events over the past two years.
Meanwhile, the Indian Music Experience (IME), another museum in Bengaluru, has three online exhibitions on Google Arts and Culture, including one dedicated to late sitar legend Ravi Shankar on his 100th birth anniversary last year.
Starting with ‘Birdsong’, which will be IME’s first physical exhibition in 2022, every exhibition organized by the museum will also be available online, promises its director Manasi Prasad. In addition to exhibitions, IME also held online classes, concerts, workshops and talks. Although their online programming started off well, audiences for concerts and workshops declined this year, probably due to screen fatigue. Despite this, IME plans to continue with its online offerings. “People don’t log in when an event is happening. But they see it later. [These videos] They are resources they can refer to whenever they want,” says Mansi.
The number of IME’s social media pages increased by more than 50% during the pandemic. Since the pandemic, Mansi says, IME has been increasingly observing and engaging with its online audience. “Whatever we performed was limited to people visiting IME. But the idea of using online platforms to bring content to audiences everywhere is something we learned during the pandemic.”
The Kerala Museum in Kochi is currently digitizing its art collection. The exhibition will go online by the end of January 2022. Details of the original works of art will be available for public viewing, along with curated stories from each of the 200 artworks on display. “As of now, we are exploring a hybrid space where the physical and the digital meet,” she adds. This is the way we all seem to be talking about museums.
“All well funded museums are strengthening their digital presence. They are moving most of their exhibitions online. This would not have happened or would have happened very slowly without the pandemic,” says Reena Dewan, former president of the International Council for Museums (ICOM) India and director of the Kolkata Center for Creativity (KCC).
community and collaboration
Museums are beginning to realize the importance of community engagement when they resume after the lockdown. By being extroverted spaces that include people from the arts community and academia, they are opening up to participation from the public.
For example, IME hosted a free open-mic during this year’s Navratri, in which anyone from the public could perform. This is just a small example of their long-term community engagement plan.
IME has partnered with the British Council to create a range of youth engagement initiatives. The museum has a youth advisory board, in which teens participate in decision-making. This board advises the museum to improve its programming. For example, one suggestion of this is to do something on K-pop.
embrace the arts
- The pandemic was not the only health care crisis. This created a wave of crises that affected almost everything, including the institutions of culture. Due to the financial turmoil it caused, many museums around the world had to sell some of their artwork to take care of the rest of their collection. The list includes some of the most famous museums in the world such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City (better known as ‘The Met’).
- But the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in Mumbai came up with an idea to preserve its collection during an uncertain time. The museum, which turns 100 next year, announced an ‘Adopt a Museum Artifact’ initiative, in which people can adopt its centuries-old artifacts. The names of the adopters were displayed near their respective artifacts and at the entrance to the museum.
- “Hundreds of Mumbaikars and a few people from Ahmedabad, Gujarat and Delhi came forward to support this initiative. They helped us raise Rs 5 crore,” says Sabyasachi Mukherjee, director general of CSMVS, who spearheaded the initiative. “When I shared this story with my foreign colleagues, they were pleasantly surprised to find that it was successful.”
As a part of its Project Swartha, IME offers its vast musical resources to children in need of neurodivers and children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. Its Future Museum Professionals Internship Program trains six interns in the creation, design and development of an online platform. “The idea is to make the place more inclusive,” says Mansi.
The Kerala government is promoting a movement to make museums act as interactive spaces for the youth. Keralam Museum, an organization formed to build and modernize museums, has taken up 11 out of 31 projects. “While well-funded museums, state and privately owned, are increasing their digital presence and implementing community outreach plans, many smaller museums struggle for survival,” says Rina.
That’s where collaboration helped. For example, during World Heritage Week from 19 to 25 November, KCC organized a group of museum exhibitions in collaboration with the Paschimbanga Museum Committee. The event aims to re-imagine the future of museums through week-long discussions, exhibitions, performances, workshops and film screenings. “We invited 16 museums from Bengal, including smaller ones. Usually, these small autonomous museums are reluctant to be a part of such events. But thanks to COVID, they were more open to collaboration and networking,” says Reena, “and that created a ripple effect. Now, the people of Gujarat and Jammu University also want to host such events which include small museums.”
Museums are no longer just a place for exhibition and display. As they adapt to the new normal, they find it necessary to talk to the community and talk to each other. The pandemic has prompted people to take a fresh look at these cultural places. Despite the slow recovery in revenue, museum directors we spoke to said people’s need to experience art and culture in physical space has only increased.
Culture is as important as health,” says Sabyasachi. “If you neglect culture, you are neglecting an important part of being human. Because culture is what instills sensation and sensitivity within a person.”
,With inputs from Divya Kala Bhavani and Anasuya Menon)
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