Venu Vasudevan, Principal Secretary, Departments of Archaeology, Museums and Archives, Government of Kerala
In his current position, Dr. Vasudevan is in charge of Kerala’s Museums, Archaeology and Archives. He has played a key role in their improvement and up-gradation and was instrumental in setting up and curating a new museum, ‘Keralam’. Under his leadership, Kerala transformed its market positioning and built up a strong private-public partnership. He also contributed to formulation of the ‘Incredible India’ campaign. As Director General of the National Museum (2013 – 2015), he spearheaded the revival of the museum. He was invited to be a participant in the Global Museum Leaders Colloquium of the Met. He has won international awards instituted by Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) for his projects, Utsavam and A Day with the Masters.

Community Museums – Creating new partnerships, Encouraging micro-narratives

The old idea of museums as embodiments of power to ‘show and tell’ about the past that fails to enthuse and attract people is undergoing a paradigm shift. The accent now is on what would make museums interactive, tactile and interesting for the people rather than the forbidding showpieces isolated from people by glass and signboards telling ‘do not touch’, ‘do not cross’, ‘keep silence’… The thinking now is how local communities can be represented and made to participate and interact with museums and turn them into community centres. The endeavour in Kerala is to create museums as centres that present intimate stories of social history of a local area or a local ethnic group (micro-narratives) rather than the present forbidding meta-narratives that attract only scholars. The paper focuses on emerging community museums in Kerala in which the community takes full ownership and pride.

Mallika Ahluwalia

Mallika Ahluwalia is the CEO, Curator, and co-founder of the world’s first Partition Museum, which opened at Town Hall, Amritsar in August 2017. She was recently awarded an Excellence Award by Conde Nast Traveller and an ASEAN-India Youth Achiever Award for her work in honouring this history. She is also the author of the book “Divided by Partition, United by Resilience: 21 Inspirational Stories from 1947”, published in 2018 by Rupa Publications. Prior to this, Mallika worked in the field of health and education with some of the leading international development organizations, focusing on social policy that impacted the most marginalized households in India. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MPA/ID from Harvard Kennedy School and an A.B. cum laude from Princeton University in public policy. She lives in New Delhi.

Creating a People’s Museum

While all new Museums face challenges from fundraising to outreach to setting up systems, the Partition Museum had the additional challenge of needing to build a collection. Most Museums in the world start when the government or a philanthropist/collector who have already spent decades building up a collection decide to open this collection to the public through establishing a museum; however, that was not how the Partition Museum started. It started with a vision and dream to have a Museum remembering the millions affected by the Partition, and from the start, a founding value was that it would be a People’s Museum. It then had to translate that vision to reality by building its collection from scratch through outreach to people. In this paper, I talk about our experience in building a collection for an event that is ~70 years in the past.

Turner, Conrad, Head – The Cultural Affairs Section at U.S. Embassy New Delhi

Conrad Turner heads the Cultural Affairs Section at U.S. Embassy New Delhi. His most recent assignment was to Los Angeles as Senior Visiting Fellow and U.S. Public Diplomat-in-Residence for USC Annenberg’s Master of Public Diplomacy program. Prior to that he headed the public affairs sections at the U.S. embassies in Ukraine and Iraq. As Deputy Director, Public Diplomacy in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, he controlled resources for PD programs in the Americas. Other Foreign Service assignments have taken him to Serbia, Croatia, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Austria, Russia and Belarus.

Conrad’s entrée to PD was as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone, where he worked with village rice farmers. Later, as Exhibit Guide with the U.S. Information Agency in the early days of glasnost, he debated current events and American society with hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens.

Conrad is a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister Counselor. He has attained fluency in Russian, Serbian/Croatian, French and Sierra Leone Krio. He is the recipient of five individual Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards, a Meritorious Step Increase and the ICASS Outstanding Leadership Award for interagency management.

Conrad earned a master’s degree in Russian from Bryn Mawr College and is an alumnus of Haverford College.

Kenneth I. Juster, United States Ambassador to the Republic of India

Kenneth I. Juster was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate on November 2, 2017 and appointed by the President on November 3, 2017 to be the 25th United States Ambassador to the Republic of India. He presented his credentials to the President of India on November 23, 2017. Mr. Juster has almost 40 years of experience as a senior business executive, senior law partner, and senior government official.
Mr. Juster previously served from January to June 2017 as the Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council. He was a senior member of both the National Security Council staff and the National Economic Council staff. In this role, Mr. Juster coordinated the Administration’s international economic policy and integrated it with national security and foreign policy. He also served as the lead U.S. negotiator (“Sherpa”) in the run-up to the G7 Summit in Taormina, Italy.
Prior to that, Mr. Juster was a Partner and Managing Director, from 2010-2017, at the global investment firm Warburg Pincus, where he focused on a broad range of issues, including geopolitical risk, global public policy, and regulatory matters relating to the Firm’s investment activities and portfolio companies. From 2005-2010, Mr. Juster was Executive Vice President of Law, Policy, and Corporate Strategy at salesforce.com, a software company that pioneered cloud computing for business enterprises
Mr. Juster served as U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce from 2001-2005, in charge of the Bureau of Industry and Security. In that capacity, he oversaw issues at the intersection of business and national security, including strategic trade controls, imports and foreign investments that affect U.S. security, enforcement of anti-boycott laws, and industry compliance with international arms control agreements. Mr. Juster co-founded and served as the U.S. Chair of the U.S.-India High Technology Cooperation Group, and was one of the key architects of the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership initiative between the United States and India. That initiative helped provide the foundation for the historic civil nuclear agreement between the two countries. Upon completion of his term at the Commerce Department, Mr. Juster received the William C. Redfield Award, the Department’s highest honor.
From 1992-1993, Mr. Juster served as the Counselor (Acting) of the U.S. Department of State, and from 1989-1992 as the Deputy and Senior Adviser to Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger. Mr. Juster was one of the key officials involved in establishing and managing U.S. assistance programs to Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, including setting up the initial Enterprise Funds for the region. He also was part of the five-man team, led by Deputy Secretary Eagleburger, that traveled to Israel prior to and during the first Gulf War to coordinate with the Israelis regarding their posture during the war. Upon completion of his term at the State Department, Mr. Juster received the Distinguished Service Award, the Department’s highest honor.
From 1981-1989 and 1993-2001, Mr. Juster practiced law at the firm Arnold & Porter, where he became a senior partner and his work involved international arbitration and litigation, corporate counseling, regulatory matters, and international trade and transactions. Among his noteworthy cases was the representation of the Government of Panama-in-exile against the Noriega regime. The President of Panama subsequently awarded him the Vasco Núñez de Balboa en el Grado de Gran Cruz Decoration and Medal.
Mr. Juster also has served as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 2010, a Member of the President’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations from 2007- 2010, a Visiting Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in 1993, a law clerk in 1980-1981 to Judge James L. Oakes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and at the National Security Council in 1978. In addition, he has served as the Chairman of the Advisory Committee of Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Chairman of Freedom House, and the Vice Chairman of the Asia Foundation. He is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Diplomacy.
Mr. Juster holds a law degree from the Harvard Law School, a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government (Phi Beta Kappa) from Harvard College.

Arun Goel, Secretary, Ministry of Culture, Government of India

Arun Goel is currently the Secretary in the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. He holds a Master’s degree in Development Economics from University of Cambridge, England. At Cambridge, he was awarded Chancellor’s Medal of Excellence for being First Class First & Record-Breaker in the University examinations and won four Gold Medals and three ‘Rolls of Honour’. He has also undergone training at JFK School of Government, Harvard University and University of California, Berkeley. He has previously held posts of Vice Chairman, Delhi Development Authority; Joint Secretary to Govt. of India, Deptt. of Revenue, Ministry of Finance; Principal Secretary to Punjab Govt., Department of Irrigation & Power; Secretary to Punjab Govt., Deptt. of Housing and Urban Development; Managing Director, Punjab State Industries & Export Corporation and Deputy Commissioner, Ludhiana.

Nirupama Kotru, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Culture, Government of India

Nirupama Kotru is an officer of the Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax) of the 1992 batch, and has worked in the Income Tax Department at Delhi, Mumbai ,Chennai and Pune. She was on deputation to Central Government from Oct.2009 to Jan.,2012 in Ministry of Corporate Affairs, where she was responsible for various e-governance initiatives of the Corporate Affairs Ministry . From Feb.2012 to Jan.2015, she was posted as Director(Films) in the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India, where she looked after the administration of media units of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting in the field of films, including the NFDC, Films Division of India, National Film Archive of India and the Directorate of Film Festivals and all policy matters relating to films. She is currently posted as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Culture, Govt of India, where she looks after iconic museums such as National Museum, Delhi, Victoria Memorial Hall and Museum, Kolkata, Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad and National Gallery of Modern Art at Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, as well as prestigious akademies such as Sahitya Akademi, National School of Drama,Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, Sangeet Natak Akademi and Lalit Kala Akademi.

Ashok Mishra

Ashok Mishra has been a part of the “Adivasi Lok Kala Evam Boli Vikas Academy’, an establishment of Culture Department of Madhya Pradesh since 1987. He was closely associated with the founding Tribal Museum and Triveni Museum for Arts. He is also associated with the establishment of ‘Sarwang’ Gallery in Sandipani Ashram in Ujjain. He has independently and collaboratively worked on editing numerous texts documenting the traditions of communities in MP. He is an editor for ‘Choumasa’, a quarterly magazine based on integrated folk and tribal heritage. He is currently working towards establishing Resource Centers and Museums for the protection of tribal cultural heritage of Baiga, Bhil, Sahariya and Bhariya tribes of MP.

Madhya Pradesh Tribal Museum

Museum For Living Aspects of Tribal Life, Indigenous Knowledge System and Aesthetics of Tribals Living in Madhya Pradesh is an ode to tribal art and culture. The museum’s thoughtfully themed galleries represent the tribal lifestyle. The first of the six galleries showcases the house building techniques and everyday objects. The second gallery showcases aesthetics of tribal life and myths and legends. The third gallery is of tribal spiritual world. The fourth gallery is dedicated to Chhattisgarh’s art and culture. The fifth gallery is based on different traditional games and the sixth gallery is based on cultural diversity of tribal lives. This presentation will focus on creation of Madhya Pradesh Tribal Museum by Ashok Mishra and his colleague Harchandan Singh Bhatti, Artist.

Harchandan Singh Bhatty

Harchandan Singh Bhatty is a talented artist who has a deep understanding of contemporary folk and tribal art-forms and designed the Tribal Art Museum in Bhopal. He was also closely associated with J. Swaminathan during the formation of Roopankar art museum. He has done designs for many plays, festivals and exhibitions and his experiments have brought him into the category of finest designers of our times. He also designed museum, art-galleries and murals during ‘Simhasth’, Ujjain in 2016. He has been a recipient of many prestigious fellowships and awards including the International Shanker award, Camelin National award and National Kalidas Art exhibition award. In 1992, he was invited to exhibit his work in ‘An Encounter with Others’ in Germany.

Madhya Pradesh Tribal Museum

Museum For Living Aspects of Tribal Life, Indigenous Knowledge System and Aesthetics of Tribals Living in Madhya Pradesh is an ode to tribal art and culture. The museum’s thoughtfully themed galleries represent the tribal lifestyle. The first of the six galleries showcases the house building techniques and everyday objects. The second gallery showcases aesthetics of tribal life and myths and legends. The third gallery is of tribal spiritual world. The fourth gallery is dedicated to Chhattisgarh’s art and culture. The fifth gallery is based on different traditional games and the sixth gallery is based on cultural diversity of tribal lives. This presentation will focus on creation of Madhya Pradesh Tribal Museum by Bhatty and his colleague Ashok Mishra, Curator of the Museum.

Madhuvanti Ghose

Madhuvanti is the first Alsdorf associate curator of Indian, Southeast Asian, Himalayan and Islamic art at the Art Institute of Chicago. She is responsible for the exhibition, collection, preservation and research of the museum’s permanent collection in these areas. She has been a lecturer in South Asian art and Archeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. she led the Vivekananda Memorial Program for Museum Excellence with the Government of India that was designed to foster professional exchanges between the Art Institute and various museums in India. It resulted in the introduction of the JATAN program across ten museums of India and the creation of the Museums of India web portal. Ghose serves on the executive committee of the board of trustees of the American Association of Art Museum Curators and is Vice President of its Governance and Nominating Committee.

Title – Unleashing India’s Soft Power – Developing More International Loan Exhibitions

Indian museums have yet to unleash the full potential of their permanent collections and to see the many benefits that lie in developing international collaborations with museums across the world through the development of more international loan exhibitions. While it has been encouraging to observe the recent international collaborations by the CSMVS and KNMA, most Indian museums are still organizing exhibits following the dictates of cultural exchange treaties under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture. This paper will examine the role played by government agencies in managing international loan exhibitions and suggest ways in which these processes can be further streamlined as well as consider the many reasons why such collaborations could be mutually beneficial to the institutions themselves.

Professor Amareswar Galla, International Technical Adviser and Chief Curator for Amaravathi Heritage Town

Amar is an advisor to the Andhra Pradesh government on various projects such as HRIDAY, PRASAD, Smart Cities. He is also a Visiting Professor at the School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada, advising on the establishment of the first ever Department for Heritage Conservation at SPAV, Ministry of Human Resource Development, India. He is founding Executive Director of the International Institute for the Inclusive Museum, USA/India/Denmark/Australia. He is a champion of cultural democracy, cultural rights, gender mainstreaming, inclusive and deep ecology demonstration projects, arts policy development, Intangible Heritage, World Heritage, indigenous peoples, intercultural dialogue, and now the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 2015-2030).

Co-curating Amaravathi Heritage Town

How does one curate the essence of a historical cultural landscape? What are the methods to bring in the unheard voices of the primary stakeholders? Are there ways of engaging dialogical methods in making exhibits? To what extent could the participation of women (UN SDG 5) be embedded? Could we rethink the museum as a cultural hub in responsible heritage tourism? These are some of the questions that confronted us in the gradual transformation of the Amaravathi Heritage Centre and Museum. We inherited it in 2016 as a much-neglected building. In 2019, it is the coordinating centre for the 300 acres of the Amaravathi Heritage Town, a historically significant cultural landscape. This presentation will focus on one of the opening exhibits in the revamped building entitled Maa Vuuru Maa Kodallu, ‘our village and our daughters-in-law’.

S.Girikumar, Art Conservator in Private Practice, Pune

As a Conservator in Private Practice, for nearly 30 years, Girikumar has worked with several cultural institutes in areas related to documentation, condition assessment, conservation & restoration, exhibition and storage of art collections of various nature and material compositions. He has worked with prominent institutes such as IGNCA, H.E.H Nizam’s Museum, the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Central Archives, The City Palace Museum and INTACH. He regularly lectures on theoretical and practical aspects of conservation of a variety of materials to students at institutions across the country. He has published prolifically on conservation related topics.

Jugaad in the Museums: Some Sustainable Ideas for Preventive Care of the Collections

The international conservation community recommends stringent standards regarding climatic conditions and quality of material in storage and display for preventive conservation in the museums. These standards are impossible to be met in countries like India where the climatic conditions are varied and extreme and resources such as uninterrupted power supply are limited. As a result, collections often perish. This presentation will discuss sustainable, innovative and cost effective approaches and case studies that show application of these successful methodologies.

Vinod Daniel, Chairman & CEO, AusHeritage & India Vision Institute

Vinod is an internationally renowned museum specialist with over 20 years in collection-related roles with the Australian Museum and the J Paul Getty Trust. His work has covered a range of specialised areas, including museum planning, conservation, management, acquisition, repatriation, capacity-building and risk assessment. As Chairman of the Board for AusHeritage and CEO at IndHeritage Pty Ltd, he provides leadership to key heritage related projects. He is Board Member of the International Council of Museums and President of the Board for the Australian operations of Centre for Environment Education (CEE). He has delivered over 100 workshops on museum-related aspects and published over 80 technical papers.

Conservation in India: Present and Future

This presentation will provide an overview on where the conservation profession is at now in India and benchmark it against the profession globally. It will highlight strategies for the profession to grow and be recognised as a critical component for Indian Museums. The presentation will also highlight the importance of Preventive Conservation for minimising deterioration of the cultural wealth of India including contemporary approaches being practiced globally.

Susan S. Bean, Chair AIIS, Center for Art and Archaeology, former Senior Curator, South Asian Art, Peabody Essex Museum

Susan S. Bean, Ph.D. is an independent scholar and curator specializing in the visual arts of modern South Asia. She is currently chair of the Art & Archaeology Center of the American Institute of Indian Studies in Gurugram, India, and an Associate of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. She was senior curator for South Asian and Korean art at the Peabody Essex Museum until her retirement in 2012. Previously she was associate professor of anthropology at Yale University, and held visiting positions at Columbia University, Brown University and Wellesley College. At the Peabody Essex Museum she acquired the Herwitz Collection of Modern & Contemporary Indian Art and reconceived the South Asian collection as the first in the U.S. to focus on art from colonial times to the present. Dr. Bean has a Ph.D. from Columbia University. More at www.susanbean.com

Manvi Seth

Manvi is Dean and HOD Museology at National Museum Institute. She is a recipient of two prestigious grants jointly with the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester from the British Academy and UGC-UKIERI. She is also a recipient of prestigious Nehru Trust UK Visiting Fellowship. She has spearheaded many research projects, outreach programmes and in-service training programmes. She has curated many exhibitions including ‘First Frames – In the Footsteps of Early Explorers’,’Ehasas: Senses and Images’ and ‘Astitav-a search for our identity’. She was recently awarded the “Best Professor’ award by the Dewang Mehta National Education Awards. She is also the Chair, Intangible Cultural Heritage Working Group, CIDOC.

Abstract

Title – National Museum Institute – Priorities and Programmes

The talk aims to deliberate on the role and challenges of Museology discipline and teaching in India. Giving an overview of the academic and research activities of the department of Museology, National Museum Institute the talk will examine various Action Research Projects conceptualized and organized by the author. Most of these projects are devised as training models for the students and research scholars pursuing Museology degree and as prototypes & template programmes for museums in India. The talk will analyze the role of these research projects in exploring the feasibility and adaptability of various Museology theories in the Indian context for the Indian audience.

Binoy Kumar Sahay

Mr Sahay is the Nodal Officer of Digitization of National Museum Collection. He has curated exhibitions like ‘Nizam’s Jewellery, ‘Alchi’, ‘Alamkara’, ‘Supreme Court of India’, ‘Tejas’, Jewellery Exhibition (at Milan & Rome), Nalanda Trail, Exhibition from SAARC countries and Bhutan etc. He has been awarded visiting fellowships in 2003 & 2009 by the Nehru Trust for the Indian collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum. He is a prolific writer and editor of texts in areas of Indian art and archaeology. His main areas of interests are in the Material Cultures of Central Asia, Ancient Indian Numismatics and Buddhist Philosophy. He is an adjunct faculty of National Museum Institute.

Jatan Digitization Program at National Museum

JATAN Virtual Museum Builder Software was designed to enable museums to digitize collections and curate online galleries. The software is approved by the Ministry of Culture and is presently installed in ten major museums across the country including the National Museum to digitize their collection. Information at each level passes through scrutiny and editing before being approved for final online viewing. Therefore, this process of digitization has presented an opportunity for relooking at the history of antiquities, their upkeep and photography. Once further developed, the result will be an example of technological excellence and how Indian museums can promote research and sharing of the heritage with the world.

Naman P. Ahuja, Professor School of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)

Naman P. Ahuja is a curator of Indian art, Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University and Co-Editor of Marg Publications. His studies on ancient terracottas and other small finds have drawn attention to the foundations of Indian visual culture and led to various publications and curatorial projects that explore the aesthetics of Indian iconography, transculturalism in antiquity, as well as the historiography of the Arts and Crafts Movement. His latest book, Art and Archaeology of Ancient India: Earliest Times to the Sixth Century presents a comprehensive catalogue of the collections of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Karni Singh Jasol, Director Mehrangarh Museum Trust

Karni Singh Jasol is the Director of the Mehrangarh Museum Trust, Jodhpur. Jasol is alumni of Maharaja Sayaji Rao University, Baroda where he pursued Art History and Archaeology. He is a Fulbright and Charles Wallace Fellow. He co-curated the much acclaimed ‘Garden and Cosmos – The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur’ exhibition, which was exhibited at the Smithsonian and the British Museum. He is currently working on a Jodhpur exhibition for an American Museum and spreading a new master-plan for the Mehrangarh Museum.

Advancing Heritage Institutions through International Partnerships

The Mehrangarh Museum was based on museology practices popular 4 to 5 decades ago. The emphasis was on taxonomy of objects, quite often eliding context. But new ideas and strategies were introduced to make the Fort a more inclusive destination and for the museum to expand its scope and build international partnerships. The presentation will share Mehrangarh’s experiences in building and sustaining cultural alliances, how they widen the reach of the museum brand, increase access to collections and assist in sharing major works of national importance with international organizations and how contribution to knowledge sharing can help build strong alliances of trust, professionalism and credibility.

Anjani Kumar Singh, Nodal Officer, Bihar Museum

Anjani Kumar Singh is the nodal officer for Bihar Museum and has been associated from beginning of this project. Currently he is the Chairperson of the Advisory council of Bihar Museum. As an IAS officer, he has worked in departments like Education, Health, Finance, Art culture, Tourism etc. and has been District Magistrate in Vaishali and Dumka districts of then Bihar. He was also the Chief Secretary for the state of Bihar for 4 years.

The Bihar Museum:  A Case Study

Set up in 2015 by the renowned Japanese architect, Maki, The Bihar Museum is an emblem of the cultural diversity and plurality of the land. Inclusive and immersive, the museum disseminates the richness of Bihar’s culture and tradition through space, artifacts, collections and its educational outreach program. This presentation will give a glimpse of the wonder that was and is India through a strong historical narrative encompassing the four prominent religious orders, i.e. Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Islam and the vast Bihari diaspora. With its innovative approach and contemporary language of communication, The Bihar Museum is attempting to map new footprints in the role and importance of state museums, within a national and international framework.

Pramod Kumar KG, Managing Director Eka Archiving Services Pvt. Ltd.

Pramod Kumar KG is the co-founder of Eka Archiving Services, (www.ekaresources.com) India’s first museum advisory firm  that provides its services to a range of institutions, collectors and collections. He has worked with a vast range of  artefacts that vary greatly in their materiality besides helping with nuanced aspects of cultural and heritage management. Pramod is the founder director of the Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing at Jaipur and instituted the Jaipur Literature Festival and is currently the co-director of Mountain Echoes, the Bhutan Literature Festival. He has curated shows and lectured extensively across India and internationally. He is a published author and has made contributions to several edited volumes besides journals, magazines and other publications.

Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Director General Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS)

Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, Managing Trustee And Honorary Director,  Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, Former Vice Chairman And Mumbai Convenor, Indian National Trust For Art And Cultural Heritage. 

Tasneem can be credited for the revival of several cultural sites in Mumbai. She spearheaded the restoration of the Bhau Daji Lad Museum that won UNESCO’s Asia Pacific ‘Award of Excellence’, 2005. She is a member of International Council of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and has served on several Indian museum boards and government committees for art and culture. She was the CII Chair for Culture in 2011 and presented an exhibition of Indian Art at Davos (2011). Harvard University included her in a list of 25 women who have made an outstanding public contribution in India.

Formulating Modes of Perception and Participation:- Museum Audiences and Beyond

Indian audiences have viewed the institution of the ‘museum’ through an inherited colonial lens, as something alien – the ajaib ghar – where strange relics and objects that have no particular relevance to their lives are displayed. How does one overcome this prejudice and this reluctance to engage? What are the strategies museums must employ to bring in these audiences and create a constellation of constituencies. How do these strategies impact the definition of the museum and change its locus in the socio-political context?

My lecture will examine the various efforts of the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum to change audience perceptions of a ‘museum’ and to break out of traditional modes of exhibition practice and enable new meanings and interpretations. The BDL Museum’s education and outreach programmes have also evolved unconventional forms of engagement to challenge audiences from a huge cross section of society, including young children to their grand parents, children and adults from disadvantaged and disabled backgrounds to students, young professionals and the affluent. There is something for everyone but at the core of our philosophy is the intention to provoke, to inspire, to connect and to create enduring memories.

The Museum’s Diploma in Modern and Contemporary Art History is in its 8th year with a batch of 24 students. The course has enabled new readings of existing and traditional artistic practices encouraging students to explore new areas of research and contribute meaningfully to the public discourse on art practice. In all of the above the Museum has attempted to redefine its identity and realign it within a contemporary context to make it more relevant to the community today.

Dr. Vishakha Desai, Senior Advisor for Global Affairs, Columbia University, former President, Asia Society

Vishakha served as the President and CEO of the Asia Society, a global organization dedicated to strengthening partnerships between Asia and the U.S. (2004 -2012). She was at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston as a Curator for Indian and Southeast Asian art and as the Head of Public Programs and Academic Affairs. For her leadership in the arts, she was selected by Crain’s New York as one of the “100 most powerful women leaders” in New York. In 2012, in recognition of her leadership in the museum field, President Barack Obama appointed her to serve on the National Museums and Library Services Board.

Leapfrogging Museums into the 21^st Century:  Bringing Past into the Present for the Future

Vishakha N. Desai, Senior Advisor for Global Affairs to the President,  and Vice Chair of Committee on Global thought, Columbia University;  President Emerita, Asia Society

Products of the colonial legacy, major museums in India have separated the country’s ancient past and its “great traditions” from its vernacular heritage and vibrant present.  Now, more than seventy years after independence, it is time to redefine the very concept of a museum and redevelop its mandate for the future generations of the country.  This illustrated lecture will briefly outline the problematics of museum creation in colonized and early independent India to highlight the need for reimagining this potentially important cultural institution for the 21^st century.  With specific examples, the lecture will raise the following questions:  Not just as mausoleums of the past, can we create museums as cultural centers where the past can comingle with the present? How might we create installations of diverse art forms—classical, vernacular and contemporary—to tell the inclusive, dynamic narrative of the culture? How might we make the rich heritage of the subcontinent more relevant and dynamic for the present? How can we make museums as safe places to debate current issues that have direct relation to our heritage?   The goal of the talk is to go beyond incremental changes and to truly transform the museums as lively centers for debate and reflection about what it means to have a rich past that can lead to brighter future.

Diane M. Zorich , Director, Digitization Program Office, Smithsonian Institution

As Director of the Smithsonian’s Digitization Program Office (DPO), Diane Zorich leads an expert team in digitizing Smithsonian collections to maximize their impact for the public. She oversees mass digitization, 3D digitization, and digitization assessment activities that develop and improve digitization processes across the Institution. Through partnerships and collaborations, she and her team ensure that digitized Smithsonian collections can be used with existing and emerging technologies to enable creativity, learning, insight, and innovation.

Reaching a Billion People Through a Digital Strategy:  The Smithsonian Institution’s Quest

The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum, research, and educational complex. Despite its reach, the Institution is limited by its physical space. It can only display about 1% of its collections at one time. Visitation numbers exceed the capacity of the museums. Given these limitations, the only way the Institution can extend its reach further is through digital means. In 2009, the Institution created a Digitization Program Office (DPO) to increase the quantity, quality, and impact of its digitized collections. This office implements mass digitization workflows, exploring and scaling up 3D imaging, and develops metrics and policies that align digitization across the Institution’s many museums and research institutions. This presentation will discuss how the DPO’s efforts to digitize Smithsonian collections at scale are now helping create the digital building blocks that will enable greater creativity, learning, insight, and innovation worldwide.

Abhishek Poddar, Founder-Trustee, Museum of Art and Photography (MAP)

Abhishek is an enthusiastic collector and patron of the arts. His collection’s significance has been acknowledged by the auction house, Christie’s. He is the Founder-Trustee at the Museum of Art & Photography, a unit of the Art & Photography Foundation. Abhishek serves on the advisory committees of several cultural institutions including the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Bengaluru, Deccan Heritage Foundation and Foundation Inde-Europe de Nouveaux Dialogues (FIND) and is a Trustee of the Art & Photography Foundation, Bengaluru.

MAPPING challenges and opportunities for a new Indian museum

Indian museums can benefit from striking a balance between conflicting roles, for instance, confirming to international best practices and local realities; existing as a recreational space and an education centre; and safeguarding independent scholarship from patrons’ priorities. Although, some challenges such as apathy towards museums loom large in the Indian context, there remains the larger universal question of making museum operations and representation equitable while being culturally relevant. This presentation will explore these ideas by analysing the roadmap for the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), a privately-funded yet publicly-minded museum operating within dynamic conditions.

Madhura Wairkar, Independent Museums Professional and Research Consultant

Madhura oversees the collection at the Piramal Museum of Art and its six gallery spaces across Mumbai. Before joining the department, she worked for several years at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum where she was instrumental in setting up and leading the collections department. She has been trained at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. She spent a year doing extensive research on nineteenth century prints for the Godrej collection. She is a guest faculty at various institutions for art appreciation and textile conservation.

Challenging the Dynamic: Managing Art Collections in “Hybrid” Museums

The intellect and aesthetic pleasure from art drives not only institutes but also individuals to collect artifacts; however, management of independent collection poses challenges like spatial limitations and devising appropriate documentation approaches. While in a museum, collections’ management primarily focuses on maintenance and documentation; in a private set-up, although the primary goal is similar, the decisions are influenced by the preferences of the collectors/family. Today, many families are opening up their personal collections to the public. This presentation intends to bridge the gap in collections’ management in both public and private domains by exploring best practices in such “hybrid” organizations.

Sanjay Dhar, Freelance Conservator Former Head of Art Conservation INTACH

Sanjay Dhar was instrumental in establishing the INTACH Art Conservation Center in Delhi as a center for excellence with focus on developing a region-specific approach to conservation and training. He has contributed significantly to the conservation of wall paintings, establishing region specific methodology, with focus on developing human resources.

Trained in India and Italy, he has served as a consultant to UNESCO, WMF (World Monument Fund) and several private foundations in China and India. With several research papers to his credit he is currently pursuing research at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. He has also received several international awards and grants.

A Critical Review of Resources for Management and Conservation of Material Cultural Expressions* in India

India has had a long tradition of managing cultural material despite adverse climatic conditions and the colonial enterprise that disrupted survival of these traditions. Scientific conservation arrived in India with the foundation of ASI (1861) and field archaeology but it wasn’t until 1990 that conservation was taught as a professional degree. However, a careful examination of the curriculum reveals methodological obsolescence especially for new media art that leads to ineffective sustaining of artefacts.  This presentation will examine pre-requisites for successful conservation in light of poor stakeholder awareness and limited resources while acknowledging exceptions and an optimistic cultural management in India.

*UNESCO Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions/ Article IV Definitions / 3

Shobita Punja

Shobita has professionally consulted on up-gradation of various museums and historical sites. She was the Chief Consultant for INTACH’s Khajuraho conservation project and set up the Heritage Education and Communication Service for INTACH, Delhi. She was appointed as CEO of the National Culture Fund, Ministry of Culture (2011-13) and is a member of the Governing Council of the Centre for Environment Education, Ahmedabad and the Sanskriti Foundation and a Trustee of the Mehrangarh Museum Trust, Jodhpur. She has authored over 15 books and frequently lectures on Indian Art at various national and global institutes.

Making Indian Museums Matter

The presentation briefly examines the historical role of Indian museums and reasons for a tenuous relationship between museums and education in India today. Globally, an intimate link between academic institutes and museums is being established, and the understanding of the role of art in the cognitive and creative growth of an individual, is being appreciated owing to advances in Educational Theory, Pedagogy and the understanding of age-related processes of cognitive development. This presentation will discuss impediments in and solutions for transformation of museums into a space for meaningful educational experience for the Indian audience.

Deepika Sorabjee, Head- Arts & Culture, Tata Trusts

Deepika Sorabjee has been a prolific writer of contemporary art and architecture. She worked in art conservation at the CSMVS Conservation Lab (2011-2013). Until 2015, she remained the Founder Trustee at the Mumbai Art Room, a not-for-profit space in contemporary art. Currently, Deepika heads the Arts & Culture portfolio at Tata Trusts where her work focuses on community and sector impact in conservation, art education and the performing arts. She also served as the Trusts’ representative on the Board of Trustees at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maha Vastru Sanghralaya since 2015. 

Particularities, Processes, Platforms: Ways of Instituting the Arts at the Tata Trusts

In a rapidly changing context, culture needs to be embedded in new communities that are marked by compromised processes, space and time. This seemingly quasi connectivity that envelops the world has alienated the local – the very quotidian of our daily culture. Over the decades, the Trust has successfully deployed ways to address the community, the gaps and the emergent in an environment of thriving multiplicity, scarce resources and nascent infrastructure. Through the particular, either individual or art-form, and common ground, the support aims to foreground processes and platforms that establish rigour in practice and provide an outreach for conventional museums.

Jayanta Sengupta, Secretary & Curator, Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata

Jayanta has extensive teaching experience at prominent national and international universities. He has been a Fellow at the Universities of Cambridge, Pennsylvania, Heidelberg, Utah, Exeter, and Calcutta. In 2015-16, he was the Getty Foundation International Fellow of the American Alliance of Museums and a representative of the GOI on the UNESCO Intergovernmental Expert Committee on the Protection and Promotion of Museums and Collections. His research focuses on the interrelationship between colonialism, nationalism, and democracy and authoritarianism in modern South Asia, cultural practices in modern India, and transnational and comparative intellectual history. He has authored ‘At the Margins: Discourses of Development, Democracy and Regionalism in Orissa’ (2015).

A Park for All Seasons: the Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata’s Urban Democratic Public Culture

The Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata (VMH), is not only India’s most-visited museum but has also been rated as the most-loved museum in India by TripAdvisor. This evinces a remarkable turnaround in the public perception of a museum that since the colonial era until recently appeared as distancing and disconcerting in its fortress-like impenetrability. So, how did the VMH transform itself from an imperial repository to an open-ended cultural space for the public? This presentation will seek answers to this question by unravelling the process that leveraged an eclectic public programming and a culture of open dialogue around critical contemporary issues.

Akansha Rastogi, Senior Curator, Exhibitions and Programming, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi

Akansha’s focus is on exhibition histories of modern and contemporary Indian art, and she is working towards a series of essays and a book of interviews. She has been an active member of several short-lived artists-led initiatives, forums and collectives in Delhi. She is the Associate Curator of India Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019). She has participated in a curatorial residency at ISCP, New York (2014) supported by Inlaks, Getty Foundation Travel Grant to Brazil (2013), IFA-Khoj curatorial residency (2011) and Asian Curators’ Program in Japan (2013), and was a recipient of IFA Research Grant (2014-15), and FICA Public Art Grant (2011-12; as WALA).

Exhibition Making/Hangar for the Passerby: Research Possibilities in Dead Ends and Detours

This presentation will make a case for exhibitions as active sites for re-thinking the researched and archived object, the institution, discipline, nomenclatures and the museum collection and its relationships with the parts unrepresented, missing or unfound. It takes into account exhibition as an event distributed across several components, a recurrence that happens alongside every viewing and engagement. It will present examples from a recent exhibition ‘Hangar for the Passerby’ on collectives, collectivity and collaborative practices, that drew upon an independent vocabulary and field, to address the contemporary art museum space it inhabited and re-purposed and the intersections it highlighted.

Dr. Ambika Bipin Patel, Professor & Head, Department of Museology, Faculty of Fine Arts, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

Ambika has received many international fellowships, recognitions and travel grant awards. She has published two books and numerous journal articles; presented at conferences and has been invited as a speaker/ resource person; conducted research projects at national level and an International Scholarship pilot research project at State Musuem Berlin in 2016. Along with being an academic leader, she has also successfully managed responsibilities such as being a board member of studies, admission committee, secretary, ICOM India and secretary, Museums Association of Gujarat; member of many national and international professional bodies such as ICOM, ICOMOS, SOSSA, ISPQS, IAS, IHC, ISBS; MAI and IASC.

Museology: Discipline and Dissemination

Museology as an academic discipline was introduced in India for the first time by MSU in 1952. This discipline needs to balance theory and practical application of professional standards, collection management, public programing and research. MSU incorporates supervised internships, museum projects and volunteering opportunities in its taught program that equips students with skills on museum administration and leadership and management of the public dimensions of museums. This presentation will discuss the introduction of Museology at MSU, its growth and the present scenario. It will also look into current museology training programs in India and their possible and prospective future directions.

Bilwa Kulkarni, Education Officer at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai

Bilwa leads the planning and organising of educational programmes at the Museum. She leads the Museum on Wheels, a museum outreach initiative that reaches out to schools, NGOs and other institutions. She has spearheaded educational initiatives for several international exhibitions displayed at CSMVS. Her most recent successful initiative was the educational programme for the landmark exhibition ‘India and the World: A History in Nine Stories’ organised in collaboration with British Museum and National Museum. She leads CSMVS’s Children’s Museum which she also helped develop. Bilwa also teaches Museum Communication for the Post-Graduate Diploma in Museology and Conservation at the Museum.

Making Museums Work for Children

CSMVS recently launched Mumbai’s first Children’s Museum that is a ‘creative cultural lab’ for children that allows them to experiment with culture in a hands-on manner. In the process of creating enriching and practical experiences for children, the museum realises the importance of involving the larger community involved with children, including parents, educators, childhood experts and development professionals. The presentation will explore the process of the development of the Children’s Museum and examine the impact of interaction with affiliated communities and the space design on the philosophy of Children’s Museum programming as well as the challenges posed.

Jawhar Sircar, Chairperson of the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta

Sircar has been India’s longest serving Culture Secretary and reported directly to the Prime Minister (2008-12). He was awarded the Dr Biman Behari Memorial Lectureship (2017) by The Asiatic Society “for his outstanding contribution to history and political thought”. In 2006, eminent historian, Tapan Raichudhuri commended Sircar for his “exceptional analytical power and depth of knowledge in diverse fields” for his research work. In 2011, the British Museum conferred a medal on Sircar “for his outstanding contribution to cultural cooperation between the Republic of India and the United Kingdom”. The Indian government’s ‘14 point policy on museum reforms” was drafted by him in 2009 and is being followed since.

Abstract

The presentation will highlight the critical factors that impede superior exhibitions and public communication in the five Central museums under the Ministry of Culture. The root cause of the relative backwardness of museums in India will be traced to the separation of ‘culture’ from the Ministry of Education in the 1990s and the consequent downslide in professions in museology, libraries and archives, exacerbated by the Ministry’s inability to appreciate the problem as a whole. This presentation will also discuss ancillary issues such as the legal system not seeing beyond an anachronistic Antiquities Act that and inadequate growth of public museums.

Sudhanva Hari Ranade, Director and Member-Secretary, Board of Management & Executive Committee, Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum, Pune

Sudhanve Ranade has been intimately associated with the Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum since 1995. He has extensive hands-on experience in culture management and effective museum operations that spans across India and Europe. Sudhanva believes that technology and culture go hand-in-hand and he is quite keen to advance techniques in museum display designing, conservation, preservation and presentation. Sudhanva has been focusing on delivering a state-of-the-art “Museum City”, which would offer fine cultural, educational, research and recreational facilities under one roof.

Reaching Audiences: Ways and Means

Museums are not only cultural organisations but are also business entities that need to thrive. Museums, not fully reliant on governmental support, secure revenue through admission fee, philanthropic support and using appropriate techniques and technology to attract and retain audiences. Consequently, museums are now becoming digital savvy destinations. Social Media platforms allow museums to break free of the confines of their academic ivory tower image and engage with communities through interactive challenges or crowd-sourcing information that helps is maximising a diverse audience following. This presentation will discuss these issues and share tips and tricks on how to effectively reach audiences.

Suman Gopinath, Programme Officer, Archive and Museum Programme, India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore

Suman manages the Archival & Museum Fellowships for IFA and plays a significant role in supporting research, curatorial and artistic interventions that activate museum collections and archives in India. As an independent curator, she has worked closely with museums on several prestigious projects including the Singapore Biennale – An Atlas of Mirrors (2016-17); Nasreen Mohamedi, Tate Liverpool, UK (2014); the Biennale Jogja -Equator #1Shadowlines: Indonesia meets India (2011-12). Suman also co-founded CoLab Art & Architecture, Bangalore (2005 – 2008) that worked closely with artists, architects, curators and academics to present contemporary Indian work within the context of international practice.

Old Routes, New Journeys

‘Old Routes, New Journeys’ captures the essence of the Archival and Museum Fellowship initiative of IFA that aims to make museum collections and archives come alive and become accessible to the public through research, artistic and curatorial intervention. This presentation will focus on four projects to address these questions: How does one build meaningful histories through everyday objects? How to make ‘national treasures’ accessible and critically enquire into the notion of ‘national treasures’ through personal histories? Are there ways of linking the sciences and the arts? How can ethnographic museums become relevant in times of globalization and mass migration?

Sharath Nambiar, Deputy Director, Dakshinachitra Museum, Chennai

Sharath directs the largest open air museum in India and is a significant contributor to the preservation and promotion of the rich cultural heritage. He has represented the museum in national and international forums, museum and tourism conferences in India and overseas. He has extensively studied Open Air Museums in Europe and is a guest lecturer at the University of Bonn, Pondicherry University and a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Museology, University of Calcutta. He is a member, ICOM, Museum Association of India, TTM and is on the Advisory Committee of Madras Craft Foundation.

Abstract

The DakshinaChitra Museum faced huge challenges in attracting visitors in the initial years after opening up in 1996. Visitors gradually trickled into the museum after outreach programs. Visitor surveys were analyzed and the consensus was that visitors desired engagement in an interactive center – a Living Museum was the key. The transformation of the Museum slowly began with welcoming spaces and historic buildings, exhibitions, programs and activities, festivals, craftspeople, folk performers, artists, art galleries and traditional cuisine. Today, the Museum is an important cultural landmark in India, relevant in all its programs and involved with the community being served.

Kristine Michael, Curriculum Leader Visual and Performing Arts, The British School, New Delhi

Kritine is a ceramic artist whose ceramics are in international collections. She has held over 26 solo shows and is a recipient of many prestigious awards. She was a research scholar under the Nehru Trust at the V&A Museum for study of its 19^th cent Indian ceramics collection and subsequently curated the Ceramics Gallery at the renovated Albert Hall Museum. She publishes and curates regularly about Indian contemporary ceramic artists and traditional ceramics. Her recent publications include ‘Indian Ceramics- History and Practice’ and ‘The Art of Kripal Singh Shekhawat’. She has been at residencies and taught ceramics at various institutes.

Abstract

The presentation will discuss the curatorial research and intervention of the pottery galleries at the Albert Hall Museum. The latter section will pose a provocation of the ways in which understanding the past is relevant to post-modern contemporary artists either bringing light on their own practice or working with craftsmen to develop new markets. The Albert Hall pottery collection illustrates the pottery craft tradition of the sub-continent and also documents through hybrid, stylistic and functional intervention, the effects of colonialism’s economic policies and the European style art school training that forever changed the trajectory of the craft by introducing souvenir and travel aide-memoire market.

Dr. Annapurna Garimella, Managing Director, Jackfruit Research & Design and Managing Trustee,  A.R.T. Trust

Annapurna is a designer and an art historian. Her research focuses on late medieval Indic architecture and the history and practices of vernacular art forms in India after Independence. She heads Jackfruit Research and Design, an organization with a specialized portfolio of design, research and curation. Her upcoming book is an edited Marg volume titled ‘The Contemporary Hindu Temple: Fragments for a History’. In 2017, she was awarded the India Today Emerging Curator of the Year Award. She is also the Founder and Managing Trustee of Art of a not-for-profit organization, Resources and Teaching Trust.

R Chandran Pillai, Executive Director, Interactive Museum of Cultural History of Kerala

Mr Pillai is a pioneer in implementing scientific display in museums and is the current Executive director of Keralam Museum – Interactive Museum of Cultural History of Kerala. He has extensive experience in archaeological excavations and surveys in Kerala and has represented heritage of Kerala in national as well as international exhibitions. Mr. Pillai has made a noteworthy contribution to creation and refurbishment of several museums. He has also written profusely and lead workshops on topics of museology and conservation of cultural heritage.

Joyoti Roy, Head of Marketing and Strategy, CSMVS, Mumbai 

Joyoti Roy has been working in the field of museums and culture for fifteen years and joined CSMVS in 2018. She is interested in the social role of museums and believes that arts institutions have the key responsibility to shape and reflect people’s futures. She was heading the Outreach Department at National Museum, New Delhi until recently. Joyoti has been a Charles Wallace India Trust Awardee for the year 2008 in conservation of contemporary art at the Tate Gallery, London. She was the Clore Leadership Fellow for Culture representing India to the UK in 2017–18 and worked with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London for their upcoming museum and collection research facility in East London.

Anupam Sah, Head of Art Conservation, Research, and Training, CSMVS Museum Art Conservation Centre

Anupam is currently the head of art conservation, research and training at the CSMVS Museum Art Conservation Centre. He is a recipient of the Sanskriti Award for Social and Cultural Achievement for his outstanding work in heritage conservation and has received two commendations from the UNESCO Asia-Pacific office. The President of Italy recently conferred on him the title of Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy for excellence in the field of art conservation-restoration. His current focus is on strengthening the art conservation profession and its training and developing a series of art conservation centers in India.