Opinion Museum,not mausoleum

In the last few decades,there has been a shift in the way that museum professionals regard museums. Questions have been raised about whether a museum ought to be a temple dedicated to knowledge,as it has been in the past,or a forum that generates new knowledge through the interactions of the community members it serves. Stephen E. Weil,in an influential article written a decade ago,pointed out that museums are increasingly focusing on visitors rather than their collections,that is,they are moving from being about something to being for somebody. This is not to argue that collections or objects ought to be relegated to the sidelines and that pure experience is sufficient. The experience,in a museum,hinges on the objects. Whether it is the wonder that is evoked in the presence of an Amrita Sher-Gil painting,or resonance felt upon observing the similarities between practices of Indus Valley craftsmen and those of contemporary Kutch craft technologies,the objects are what set the experience of going to a museum apart from watching a game of cricket,or going to a movie,or even visiting Disneyland.

The question,then,is how to evoke this wonder and resonance among visitors,and make their experiences in a museum personally relevant. It is hardly sufficient to just place the objects in a building and let visitors have free entry. Of course,free entry,as in the case of the National Museum,helps. It helps in as far as it removes a deterrent,but it is not driving the crowds in. If a museum is to have any function beyond being a mere repository for objects (in which case it may as well be a research facility),then it has to find ways to make its collections meaningful not only for its curators and a scant few researchers,but for its visitors. This is as true of public museums,such as the National Museum,as it is of privately run museums.

The latter have responded more urgently to this because they depend,to a much greater extent,on visitor fees and corporate sponsorships and endowments for their expenses. In effect,more and more private museums are being treated as businesses that need to provide services effectively and efficiently,as well as to produce profits,or at least,to not suffer losses. As a result,there is the building of such tourist attractions as the architecturally fantastic Guggenheim museum in Bilbao,Spain. Or,there is the hiring of an ex-Disneyland executive as a “visitor experience designer” at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit. There is even the appointment of general managers with corporate experience,instead of curators,as directors at some institutions in recent years.

While such measures can hardly be recommended for public museums (or even sometimes,for private museums — one wonders whether a visitor to the Bilbao

Museum is interested in the exhibits or the architecture),their focus on the visitor is surely a crucial take-away. In a less radical manner,this may be achieved through increasing visitor access to objects (through optimal display techniques,multilingual guides,catalogues),or more opportunities for public interaction (through mixed-space use,hosting public events,and developing exhibits that challenge our current understanding and generate debate),or any number of other ways. Making the visitor central,however,is not a task easily undertaken — particularly when faced with deeply entrenched past practices and the understandably possessive attachments of curators to their collections. But if a museum can be made to engage its visitors as much as it engages its objects,it’s got to be a good thing. Of course,this move requires a change in vision,determined leadership,and a commitment to the public. Which brings us back to the question of the National Museum.

There is no harm in touting the National Museum as the “pride of India”,so long as this claim is made on the basis of what it provides to Indians and not on the basis of what it collects of India. India,after all,is hardly a relic and its history is being made every day — its time the National Museum engaged these present concerns.

The writer is a museum studies scholar express@expressindia.com