Opinion India@75, Looking at 100: Imagine the ideal museum
I would conceive it as a playground, with a research institution attached to create a knowledge bank of art and culture, which can be relayed in many registers
Today our museums are far from conveying a sense of enchantment. They are beset with bureaucratic apathy and governance issues. (Express Photo) 
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The great African writer Chinua Achebe (1930 – 2013) suggested that art is not only a form of consciousness accessible to everyone, but it is also a form of citizenship. He states, “there is no rigid barrier between the makers of culture and its consumers. Art belongs to all and is a ‘function’ of society.” He goes on to explain his statement through a ritual of the Ibo tribe in Nigeria, in which the entire community participates in an artistic celebration of the Earth Goddess, where people take on the mantle of the artist. Creativity is not only intrinsic to being, but is also a form of social bonding and cooperation.
I would like to suggest that for museums the world over, there is an instructive paradigm here. The future of museums will be determined by its many communities, and the skill with which museums as institutions can negotiate disparate ideas and competing world views. Achebe lamented the notion of a single truth that the colonialists and missionaries brought to Africa which, like India, has varied cultural rituals and forms of worship. In codifying and categorising these cultures in ethnographic and encyclopaedic museums, the colonialists dispensed with the many nuances and slippages that occur in the life of both the community and the object. This linear perspective still prevails in Indian museums and urgently needs to be reinterpreted and reimagined.
In fact, the concept of a museum itself is alien to India and perhaps that is the reason its survival, both physically, through the display of objects, and as a concept, through imaginative programming, has been so tenuous. There was never a dearth in the production of great art in India but it was mostly intended for personal and intimate enjoyment or religious ritual, and for archival purposes, not for vast public consumption. When first confronted with museums in 19th century Calcutta and Bombay, the local people coined a word for these in Hindi, “Ajaib ghar” or house of wonder and enchantment, as they tried to make sense of what was being presented.
Today our museums are far from conveying a sense of enchantment. They are beset with bureaucratic apathy and governance issues. The lack of skilled man power, and the great lacuna in education programmes to address this need only compound the problem.
For the longest time, art and culture were seen as an elite preoccupation and therefore scant attention was paid to their promotion and presentation by the government, which controls most of the country’s museums, except when expedient. Recently, there has been a cosmetic effort to address the situation, as India is so far behind global norms on all parameters. However, unless the umbilical cord with the government is cut, and experts are given the freedom to run museums, political expediency will prevail.
Given this reality, how should we try to imagine the ideal museum when India turns 100 in 2047? Taking a cue from Achebe, I would say let many flowers bloom and many voices sing. We must eschew the idea of an overarching perspective. To narrowly prescribe and restrict artistic interpretation is to destroy the golden egg of India’s incredibly diverse, rich and nuanced culture.
One of the most important ways to do this in museums is to bring in the community through artist voices, to enable us to deconstruct, contextualise and contemporise the past. Scholars often get stuck in silos but artists liberate ideas and let them grow wings. This will reinvigorate Indian museums and give them fresh life. It will intrigue and engage audiences in a way that a logical narrative can’t do. No amount of beautifying buildings can do this either! It requires serious research, out-of-the-box thinking and thoughtful curation.
If I were to create an ideal museum for India at 100, I would conceive it as a playground, with a research institution attached to create a knowledge bank of Indian art and culture, which can be relayed in many registers. I would deploy artificial intelligence and augmented reality to help artists and scholars reconstruct object stories through engaging interactive artworks that the community could add to or interpret, allowing for a democratic perspective to emerge. I would mix up collections through a differently configured aesthetic and conceptual syntax to explore unusual connections and underlying impulses. I might choose to adhere to a historical timeline in one exhibition and skew it in another to present different but synonymous realities. The museum would be the place to explore and enjoy the extraordinary artistic and cultural diversity in every facet of India.
Another passionate belief of mine is that the museum must move out into the community. I would create exhibitions on streets and on railway platforms and energise schools and universities to set up their own museums. I would invite people to pick their favourite objects from the museum’s collection, encouraging them to enjoy and relate to the objects in personal ways and create their own stories about them.
Ultimately, the goal of the ideal museum must be to build empathy and community; to encourage curiosity and respect for the multitude of cultures that inhabit India and the world; to spark challenging conversations and a love of learning through art and culture that will help make us better citizens who can shape a happier and safer world.
The writer is honorary director and managing trustee of the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai. This article is part of an ongoing series, which began on August 15, by women who have made a mark, across sectors
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