With land in their sight and a director appointed, the Science Gallery Bengaluru (SGB) — the first of its kind in Asia — seems to be gathering momentum nearly three years after the project was announced.
In the last week of November, Indian Veterinary Research Institute signed a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the State government to hand over nearly 1.5 acres on airport road near Mehkri Circle for the development of the SGB.
“With this, construction of the ₹30-crore gallery can commence and is expected to take at least 2.5 years,” said H. Honne Gowda, Special Director (Technical), Department of Science, Government of Karnataka, which is one of the partners in the project.
“There was a delay as we were looking for land in central Bengaluru. That was difficult to find, but we have managed to secure property that is very close to the major research institutes. The State government has already sanctioned ₹7.5 crore for construction this year, and we will release the rest in phases,” he said.
In 2014, SGB was announced through an MoU with the State government and Science Gallery International (SGI), which set up galleries in Dublin (Ireland) and London (UK), with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc.) and National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) as partners. The gallery is envisioned as a dynamic platform for the intersection of academia, arts and industry. It is expected to get 4 lakh footfalls per annum.
By 2020, SGI hopes to set up 8 galleries globally with the exhibits moving from one to the other.
Hit the ground running
Jahnavi Phalkey, a science historian, was appointed as the founder-director of SGB just two weeks ago. It was followed by a flurry of meetings with more in the pipeline.
As the building gets constructed, she hopes to kick-start activities at the gallery through a series of engagements in campuses, parks and other spaces to reach out to students. “Until the infrastructure comes up, we will use public space to showcase the model the gallery will work on — a natural space for collaboration and debate involving students, scientists, artists and others,” she said.
For her, the Bengaluru gallery opens opportunities that are different from the successful models of Dublin and London, where the galleries are attached to specific universities and were created with a mandate to encourage more students to pursue science and technology.
“In India, we do not have to worry about these. Instead, we have to find a creative engagement for students. Unlike the other galleries, where students are mediators for projects helmed by scientists and artists, in Bengaluru, they will instead be critical to creating these projects and leading them,” said Dr. Phalkey.
