Connect

Previous workshops

Classical museums and collections in contemporary contexts

Berlin, May 3, 2010

(co-organized with Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden)

The first workshop of the Museums and Art History focus group was mainly dedicated to the formation, development and the today’s status of the Indian Museum in Calcutta in comparison with European museums models. Founded in 1814 on the initiative of the Asiatic Society and first located in the Society’s premises, the Indian Museum constitutes not only the first such institution in Asia, but belongs to the oldest museum institutions world-wide. Since 1875 the museum is accommodated in a historic colonial building, which until today holds a crowning position in the cityscape of Calcutta.

Arising from the broad exchange of information and details embodied in the contributions (by director of the Indian Museum, Kishor Basa, and by Tapati Guha-Thakurta from CSSS, Calcutta), the discussion developed, ranging over and including the following points:

  • The role of the Asiatic Society, founded by William Jones in 1784, in the establishment and development of the Indian Museum
  • The role/interest for scholarly collections in the 18th- 19th century.
  • The formation of the Indian Museum in the context of the Universal exhibition of the 19th Century.
  • The role models for the Indian Museum and the possibility or impossibility of assimilating it within a typology based on European museum models.
  • The long tradition of private (colonial or indigenous royal and court-) collections in India.
  • The practice of decontextualization of objects in the museum.
  • Does the Musée de l’Europe present a transferable model for a collective museum for South Asia?
  • The role of the Indian Museum with its unique institutional and collection history, in the international post-colonial discourse.
  • The opportunities and threats of multidisciplinary museums.
  • The visitor structure and visitor expectations at the Indian Museum.
  • The meaning of the historical architecture of the museum for the urban image of Calcutta.

Museums and Art History

Berlin, May 3-4, 2011

The purpose of the second meeting was to develop a collaborative research agenda which the Museums group would then explore over the following three years. To that end, the agenda was drafted to allow a large variety of perspectives and questions to be present in the discussions.

Notably, the following topics were discussed:

  • Session I: The Pre-Colonial Museum
  • Session II: Museum in the Colonial Era
  • Session III: Contemporary Museums, comparative approaches
  • Synthesis / Perspectives

Comparative History of Museums in India and Europe

New Delhi, September 14-15, 2012

Starting point for the workshop was the observation that India presently experiences profound changes in economy, society and politics. They call into mind crisis-shaken Europe in the late 18th and 19th centuries when drastic reforms were brought about by enlightenment and industrialization. In this historic context of a decisive structural transformation of the public sphere, the formation of the modern nation-state ran parallel to the establishment of the institution of the museum. As a result, the idea of the nation and the museum appear to be strongly linked to each other. Museums were often ascribed the function of constructing and representing national identity. Or, to put it more generally, they were regarded as instruments of stabilizing the civic society.

Against the backdrop, the workshop was intended as a platform for an interdisciplinary and international exchange on the following questions: Which role do museums in today’s India play, or which roles are assigned to them in the process of remaking Indian society? Is the recent explosion of private initiatives to found museums and to render collections accessible to a larger public expressive of the importance of the institution in a society being heavily transformed? Which significance is attributed to the objects/artifacts themselves in the framework of an exhibition? And finally, do we find any parallels between India and Europe when looking at the museum culture on both (sub) continents in the past? In how far might a historic comparative perspective help to shed light onto the function of museums and of publicly displayed artifacts in present day India?

In order to tackle questions like these the workshop comprised four sessions each of which focused substantial issues of museological discourse and museum practice:

  • Collecting/Gathering;
  • Giving;
  • Ownership vs. Custodianship;
  • Museum Effect.

In each session an opening statement was provided by both a European and an Indian scholar that provided the basis for the discussion among all participants and enhanced the discursive structure of the workshop.