The ordinary members of the Egyptian community stood guarding the treasures housed at the Egyptian museum in Cairo, to prevent robbers and protestors from looting and vandalising the priceless antiquities in the strife-torn country. They risked their lives because the robbers were out on the streets, heavily armed. The exemplary act went on to prove that museums in the 21s{+t} Century haven't been reduced to redundant structures and the institution is still viewed with faith and belief.
While there is reverence on one end, on the other, is confusion. “Museum world is in a flux,” stated Mahrukh Tarapor, Director for International Affairs of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, at the panel discussion held earlier this week on “Future of Museums in a Global World” with luminaries like Neil MacGregor, Director, British Museum, Sir Mark Jones, Director, Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A Museum), London. Moderated by Jawahar Sircar, Secretary, Ministry of Culture, Sircar himself had remarked a few minutes earlier that the world is indeed asking tough questions.
The challenge for the museums the world over to reinvent and redefine their roles in today's world has been posed by globalisation, new technology and a more connected world.
Neil MacGregor, known for his remarkable series on BBC Radio 4 and the World Service, ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects', said, “The history we have all learnt is the history of the world that has disappeared. Now we have to create history in a more engaging way. Museum is not just a collection of artefacts but a place of ideas, debates, changes. The space doesn't just belong to the intellectuals but everybody. In European and Indian society, as far as I know, it also has the potential to become a secular space. The debates that can't happen in a mosque or a temple can happen here.”
The upright director with his tremendous vision turned around the fortunes of the British Museum — the institution was £5 million in deficit at that time — after he took over as its director in 2002. While Jones expressed that museums can't be expected to enter a political arena and take on a wide variety of roles because it is in some situations partially and not wholly effective in bringing about a change, MacGregor felt that the spaces can become an agent of change and not just be a repository of priceless collection. Citing the example of British Museum and its work on Iran, he said that British Museum lead a change in respect with the public understanding of the Iranian culture.
Caught in a Web!
Talking about the influence the Web has had on the visitors, Sir Mark Jones of another historical museum, V&A Museum, known for its thrust on decorative arts, particularly design, revealed, “V & A has 24 million virtual visitors annually and 2.5 million actual visitors. Over the last 20 years, there has been significant change in the way people have been accessing information. When I look at the future of the museums in a globalised world, I see greater accessibility to the collection.” V&A is already working in the direction and 1,000,000 works from its collections — including ceramics, fashion, furniture, glass, metalwork, paintings, photographs, prints, sculpture and textiles — can be viewed on its website.
As much as V&A Dundee, V&A's first base out of London, is for design, it is equally an effort at contemporaneity. “While V&A Dundee is for contemporary design with its whole range and regeneration of a city, the programmes like Black Heritage Season and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History month are meant to capture different kinds of people,” Jones told us later.
Coming to the Indian context, Tarapor and Sircar seemed to agree that such dynamism has escaped the world of Indian museums. Sircar, had in fact gone on to admit right at the beginning of the session that Indian museums aren't in the best of condition. But the scene is not all that bleak. Culture Secretary informed that major improvements are on their way and the museums are working on increasing digitisation and use of multi-media technologies to attract more visitors, youth in particular.
Tarapor, who is on the museum reforms committee, also felt that while Indian museums lack dynamism, they can't follow the same trajectory as their counterparts in the West. “Museum reforms are progressing in the right direction but I think we will have to do something completely new and unique. The enormous craft traditions need to be incorporated.”
Museum facts
The five other major museums in India — Victoria Memorial, Indian Museum (Kolkata), Salar Jung Museum (Hyderabad), Allahabad Museum, Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (Bhopal) are autonomous bodies and have no relation with the government except funding.
Currently a team of Indian museum officials are touring the UK as part of the joint initiative of the Union ministry of culture and the British Council. The idea is to familiarise the museum officials here with cutting edge knowledge of the best practices at museums abroad.
It is the result of the Indo-British cultural agreement that was signed by UK Secretary of State for Culture Jeremy Hunt and Sircar last year.
Union ministry of Culture, India is working with their British counterparts over digitisation of Company paintings.
