Democratising Museums

Bihar Museum is an opportunity for opening up of the museum space in ways never done before in India

- Abhik Bhattacharya

A small box. Nine booklets. Each representing a museum. No stagnant, immobile architecture. It walks. Speaks to the people. Creates new imaginations. As artist Dayanita Singh, who identifies herself as 'mother of museums,' wearing her museum jacket, climbs down the stage and walks towards the audience showing them her mobile museums, a new discourse is birthed-a novel interaction begins.

What is a museum? Is it all about a structure that archives history? Or, can it be reimagined as a mobile and dynamic form that forges a connection with lived memories and bodies? Can the museum space be democratised?

Nuanced discussions on these aspects shaped the discursive context of the panel discussions organised by Outlook in collaboration with Bihar Museum in the run up to the second edition of the Bihar Museum Biennale. Divided in two thematic panel discussions-one on 'Collective and Individual Memory' and the other on 'The Ways of Representation and Democratisation of Museums and featuring a performance by Bihari folk singer Chandan Tiwari, the programme held at Bikaner house on June 24 witnessed a sizeable outpouring of people from the arts and academia.

While the panellists focused on the democratisation of art and its possibilities, the temporary museum titled 'Lost and Founds', curated and conceptualised by Chinki Sinha, editor of Outlook magazine, reimagined the idea of everyday objects. Showcasing an array of objects ranging from Chhat dolls to Bihari marriage headgear like mauri and shehra, Sinha added a new meaning to object functionality. As the objects are shifted from their usual sites, not only are the temporal and spatial meanings changed; a new intimate connection is built across the interface of subject-object interactions.