DIRECTOR’S DESK

DIRECTOR’S DESK

There has been a paradigm shift in the concept of Museums across the world. The present trends of contemporary museums across the world have been transformed over the years considerably. Now, the Museums endeavor to reimaging their institution as an integral part of the communities, making their museum more inclusive by radically changing its concept by envisioning and ensuring the museum space where more and more public participations are encouraged so as to make the museum more interactive as well as audience centric. Allahabad Museums is not simply known for its rich and varied collections of artifacts rather it is acknowledged as an institution that allows you to meet with your friends, neighbors, discuss thoughts and opinions, and becoming an active part of the community. There has been a symbiotic relation between the artifact and events which are organized in our museum.

It is increasingly engaging the audience, researchers, connoisseurs by holding art talks, symposia, seminars, workshops, cultural events, competitions for children, giving opportunity for learning Yoga, creating space for spiritual discourse to unravel the mysteries, facilitating the youths for their learning of different tradition of art and architecture keeping in view of engaging, educating and entertaining different sections and segments of audience. Besides giving opportunity to the youths to learn the art of documentary making, heritage conservation, performing art, ceramic and terracotta, crafting and folk art learning so on and so forth. These activities are organized to build audience through which a larger community can have their participation and engagement.

Allahabad Museum has taken up the initiative to cater to different segments of visitors as per their tastes and likings and accordingly formulates and designs exhibition and organizes events to make them more interpretative and entertaining and engaging by generating new content and experiences so as to make the museum more interacting and interpretive in a storytelling manner by using different digital gazettes and software. Experiences of the visitor’s interpretation of the artifacts displayed in the museum are to create more happiness than material goods which elsewhere they usually experience because they provide positive personal memories over time. That is, why as we revisit the memory of our trip to the museum, where we have a tendency to psychologically remove our negative memories. Experiences, by visiting Allahabad Museum, can also become a meaningful part of one’s identity which has been a demand of the progressive society that can contribute to successful social relationships in the society on one hand and connecting themselves with the objects on display on the other.

The primary role of museums is to engage, educate and entertain community. Museum exhibits can afford to do things through their inherent meaning, depicting the narratives that dates backs thousands years to inspire interest in an area of study, item, time period, or an idea of our past which has its continuity and change and have immense potential to awaken the people socially, morally, psychologically, culturally, spiritually, to transcend of ourselves.

The thrust of this year (2017-18) programme is to encourage field research and exploration of the adjoining Gangetic region, revisiting and interpreting the findings and discovery of the past and organizing exhibitions and National and International Seminars to deliberate on those untouched topics connected with their recent observation and findings of history and Archaeology so as to redefine the history based on rational interpretation and scientific research. The second part of the thrust will be to link the artifacts with people’s History and connecting people through the art object for their understandings in the contemporary context.

(Rajesh Prasad)