The talk by Karen Exell on 6th August 2016 at 6.30 pm at IIC, Delhi on the theme, ‘Museums and the Present: Issues of Community, Locality and Contextual Relevance’ was conclude successfully. The talk was organised by the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences at South Asian University in collaboration with IIC.
The basic argument of the presentation was that “Museums were developed in many parts of the world during the colonial period to ‘visualise and objectify’ the colonised people and country for the coloniser, as Shaila Bhatti has argued in relation to the Lahore Museum, or to collect and display archaeological material that supported western interests. Following decolonisation the perception has remained amongst local communities that these ‘colonial’ museums are irrelevant to their contemporary concerns. This contrasts with museological approaches in some northern European countries, where museums have become central to social policy agendas of community support, or the focus of grass-roots cultural initiatives. Using models from a variety of countries, this lecture argues that museums in post-colonial countries such as India have the opportunity to significantly enrich the lives of their local communities through creative interventions, and to realign these museums with contemporary socio-political concerns.”
The speaker, Karen Excel teaches Museum Studies, and is Programme Director of the MA program in Museum and Gallery Practice at University College London’s Qatar campus. Her research interests include the social and political role of museums and the impact of museums on cultural identity, with a focus on non-western societies. Her recent publications include the co-edited volume, Heritage Debates in the Arabian Peninsula published in 2014, and the forthcoming monograph, Museums in the Arabian Peninsula: Globalisation and the Politics of Representation scheduled to be published by Routledge in 2016.
In intruding the speaker and SAU Sociology department’s involvement in its organization, the Chair, Sasanka Perera made the following observations:
I want to take a little bit of time to explain how it was possible for an academic program such as sociology to imagine a theme like this, given the fact that our discipline is generally supposed to deal with the present. Besides, we are a relatively unheard of entity as both a Department and as a University. I am sure most of you do not know what or where South Asian University is. It does not really matter. I am sure you will soon enough.
But for me, that lack of an institutional tradition or heritage is an asset when we are in the process of building something from scratch. A tradition can sometimes be a burden for well established universities in the context of which they have to constantly measure what they do. Creative transgression would be unthinkable. At the moment at least, this is not a consideration for us.
Clearly, we deal with issues such as migration, gender, violence, law, the city, class and so on as do other sociologists. But because we are in the process of defining our own presence and perspective as well as our collective intellectual future in Delhi and in South Asia, some of us are also interested in things and objects that many sociologists would not take too seriously. These include visual arts, film and performance, photography and in understanding the ways in which the past is an ensuring presence in our present. In other words, we would like to establish our practice slightly differently if given the option.
In that sense, the interest in this theme came very naturally. It is also in that same context that we organised a very unique and engaged conversation with Professor Romila Thapar in 2013 focused on the theme ‘debating the past and the present’. These proceedings have since been published in our ongoing series, ‘Conversations on/for South Asia.’
Though we have inherited the idea of museums as part of our colonial experience, they are now very much part of our collective existence playing out our own politics and intrigue. Not too long ago, in a single day the National Museum of Maldives was vandalised twice, and the Buddhist artefacts there destroyed. In Colombo, over a decade ago, some artefacts in the National Museum were taken to the President’s house, not as part of any specific program, but simply because he liked them. He also wanted the throne of the last king of Lanka to be taken to his residence to sit on when receiving foreign dignitaries.
The appointment of Directors to important museums in the region and clearly in Delhi is an important political act. It is a matter of how the past might be represented in a way that would make sense to political dispensations of today.
So clearly, the past as packaged in museums, the past as we popularly understand it, and the past as it is officially handled is very much a matter of the present. And that itself makes it relevant for us as sociologists not too keen to be imprisoned by the conventions of our discipline.
I am sure Dr Exell will deal with in detail how museums become an integral part of the discursive practices of the present in her talk.
