In class, while teaching ‘Museum Management’ I wrote on the board some of the Indian cities I have visited for their Museums. It helped me map my journey from my birth place Jaipur (where I was born of a Museum connection) to other parts of India.
This map connected me to the students who belonged to some of these cities and we started sharing experiences and stories. It established a unique bond – a bond that will remain even if we never meet again.
I asked some friends to send in their reminiscences to their favourite Museums. Here’s a few of their Museums memories – what are yours???
The objective of International Museum Day is to raise awareness of the fact that, “Museums are an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples.”
This #MuseumDay let’s celebrate our bonds, connections, links, experiences, memories and stories with some of our favourite Museums in the world ❤
Praneti Kulkarni, a narrative environment designer, loves exploring the multiple layers of the physical and digital spaces. She occasionally conduct walks around the markets in Mumbai and Pune that help her see the micro systems existing within the macro system of the cities.
“People, their traditions, old as well as new places and great food inspire me.”
Her favourite museum: The Leonardo daVinci Museum, Florence, Italy
Praneti writes: Almost felt like walking through his brain and seeing his thoughts in action
Sutanuka Ghosh is a teacher of literature. She travels on work and otherwise which enables her to indulge her love for art, architecture and history. She is also fundamentally interested in people, cultures, philosophy, and things tangible and intangible!
Her favourite museum: The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA
Sutanuka remembers: I had taken the better part of a day to just go through the amazing Impressionist Collection and the Indian, Southeast Asian and Himalayan Art Collection.
Nikhilesh Dasgupta is an old friend living in London.
His favourite museum: The Victoria & Albert Museum, South Kensington, London, UK
He shares, “This is the museum of decorative arts and design. Most people come for the blockbuster exhibitions of Alexander McQueen’s fashion creations and the Rolling Stones. But they also organise more serious exhibitions like the Fabric of India, plywood and Ove Arup, the pioneering engineer who built the Sydney Opera House. It is always fascinating to admire the design of these exhibitions including soundscape and lighting.
The biggest secret of the V&A are the main galleries which cover a whole range of priceless artefacts and are free to enter. These include the Raphael cartoons (large scale preparatory drawings for Sistine Chapel tapestries); plaster casts of famous European sculpture eg Michelangelo’s David; galleries looking at Europe and Britain from the renaissance onwards; galleries of Indian (Shah Jahan’s cup) Islamic (the Ardabil carpet), Chinese, Japanese and Korean art.
There are galleries devoted to materials eg glass, ceramics, ironware and silverware; and galleries of objects like jewellery and furniture; the photographic gallery and the theatre gallery including costumes, stage design boxes and props (including Dame Edna Everage’s Sydney Opera House hat). Tucked away at the back of the building is a small but important collection of British art including Turner, the pre-Raphaelites, Beatrix Potter, Ernest Shepard, and the Constable cloud studies.
The best way to get a flavour of the museum is to join one of the free tours that leave from under the Chihuly chandelier in the main entrance hall. Some of these are general introductions to the museum, some look at specific periods/galleries and other explore themes like representations of LGBT or black people in the collection.”
VarnikaDesigns 