By Christina Kattikatt
This summer I had the privilege to do my internship at a museum in Kerala. It would be a lie to say that I always found museums fascinating. As I child I remember visiting many museums ranging from the Smithsonian National Air and Space, Washington, D.C. to North Carolina Museum of History. But my admiration for these places was short-lived and often forgotten (as compared to visits to theme parks and zoos). Museums were just a place we went to visit to get information and dream about things we have only heard of (dinosaur fossils, a replica of space shuttles, etc.). But with my internship at Kerala Museum, I realized that there is much more to a museum than just being a place where objects are displayed.
The role of museums in our society can’t be overlooked and we can see that in how almost every country would have top-notch museums to showcase their art, history, culture and development. Thus began my new found interest in this field of ‘museology’ and subsequent quest to understand the various functions of museums that exist in my locality. My recent visit to the National Gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore was a useful addition to this ‘quest’.
NGMA, Bangalore (as it is popularly known) is one of the four National Art Galleries in this country. It was opened to public in 2009 after it was transformed from a residence into an Art Gallery. The Gallery primarily contains sculptures, paintings, graphic prints and early photography. The building itself has a colonial touch to it (it was a mansion before it was turned into a museum) and is spacious with a beautiful ‘courtyard’ where visitors can sit and talk in the shade of huge trees. One thing I noticed about museums like this is the peace it exudes. Most museums are keen to keep an ambience that holds visitors back even after completing a tour of the galleries. NGMA, along with its permanent gallery, frequently holds various kinds of exhibition. When I visited, the exhibition going on was ‘Itihaas’ (means ‘History’ in Sanskrit). Instead of a describing what all I saw there, I think it’s best to describe some of the issues/ questions that I faced there. From the beginning of my self-guided tour there, I was unsettled by the fact that I was there more as a ‘researcher/critic’ than a tourist; Unlike my time at Kerala Museum, I felt obliged to do more than just explore the galleries and jot down a few notes. If one comes as a researcher instead of a tourists, the whole experience will be different. One will question if he/she is doing the analysis right and whether they are reading into works too much. This brings into question Barker states in his essay on archaeological museums. Barker asks if objects in museum can be considered and read like ‘texts’. If so, is there a right or wrong interpretation of the work? It was like how Alex Barker explained the dilemma of museums and how museums have to constantly try and balance the demands of access and interpretation versus preservation and stewardship.
It was also interesting to see that in the Itihaas exhibit some sculptures had two different interpretations and representations of the same model/person by the same artist. For example, there were sculptures of women bathing done in different sizes and sculptures of R.N.Tagore done both in a traditional and modernist way by the same artist. This shows the multiple ways in which you can show something and thereby give it different meanings. Another intriguing aspect was the design of the building and exhibit itself. The artwork was often displayed on top of crates and these crates too had some writing or sketching on it. Leaving the artwork alongside the crates gave it an unconventional and authentic feel to it (straight out of the box with limited tampering of the object). The building had a space in the middle where there were small plants and trees. This helped in provided a more natural feel to it since it didn’t completely cut off the visitors from the outside world. It was as if nature and such spaces were interwoven into the museum exhibit and thus provided freedom for visitors to walk in and out of the natural and constructed world of the museum.
Museums are integral part of any society. Through their collections they bring out narratives that may diverge from the mainstream stories. They become the ‘achons’ of our time with the power to withhold/ use information as they please. More and more, museums realize the responsibility they have towards people of the society as well as the role they play in shaping the cultural consciousness. By incorporating technology and innovative workshops, museums are growing into institutions that need to be visited, researched and questioned.
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