Museum walks, workshops and lectures from May 13-20 will explore history, culture and traditions
New Delhi, May 14: Sahapedia.org, the open online resource on art and culture that has undertaken one of the largest museum mapping projects in India, is marking International Museum Day by encouraging people to understand their histories and traditions through antiquities, artefacts and knowledge protected and conserved by museums in their cities.
Sahapedia is celebrating the International Museum Day from May 13-20, 2018 with a host of programmes including museum walks, workshops andbaithaks (talks) across 15 cities, in partnership with a number of social, cultural and not-for-profit organisations.
Two cities, Delhi and Ahmedabad hosted the inaugural walks on Sunday, May 13. The walk in the national capital was organised in partnership with the Delhi Police and customised for children of their employees who were taken on a tour of the National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum that houses a vast collection of tribal and rural crafts as well as textiles and jewellery.
In Ahmedabad the participants visited the iconic Sanskar Kendra, marking the start of a week of walks and workshops led by a host of researchers and subject experts in cities including Srinagar, Jodhpur, Kolkata, Shillong, Baroda, Amritsar, Allahabad and Varanasi.
Sahapedia is a not-for-profit organisation carrying out extensive work in cultural documentation, research and conservation. One of its key projects is the free museumsofindia.org portal which was launched on International Museum Day on May 18 last year and aims to create an all-inclusive digital database of the more than 1,000 museums across India.
“One of the key objectives of International Museum Day is to raise awareness around museums and identifying them as significant spaces for cultural exchange and enrichment. Additionally, this year's theme — Hyper-connected museums: New approaches, new publics — is aligned with Sahapedia's Museum of India project 's vision of engaging with museum professionals and the audience through varied mediums available, both online and offline,” said Vaibhav Chauhan, Secretary, Sahapedia.
One of the key features of the International Museum Week, as with the nationwide India Heritage Walk Festival that Sahapedia had organised in February this year is ‘inclusivity’. The events scheduled over the week include specially crafted walks for underprivileged children in partnership with CRY in Bengaluru and Magic Bus in Mumbai.
A special blindfold tactile art workshop titled ‘Anubhuti’ is being organised in New Delhi on Friday, May 18 in partnership with Access for ALL.
Dr B. Venugopal, the former Director of the National Museum of Natural History will speak on accessibility and social inclusion in Kochi at the Kerala Museum of History on International Museum Day.
In Chandigarh a museum walk and a storytelling session will be held at the International Doll Museum on May 19.
“Sahapedia has always believed in making heritage engagement programmes more holistic and inclusive. These initiatives have the benefit of highlighting these issues to institutions, and indicating the need to alter heritage spaces into more inclusive spaces,” Mr Chauhan said.
