The Diverse Worlds Inside A Museum
- Features
Dr B Venugopal spoke about museums and their relevance at an Abhimukham held by Sahapedia in Kochi
On the occasion of International Museum Day on May 18, Sahapedia organised a talk by Dr B Venugopal, the former director of National Museum of Natural History on the topic ‘Museums, Accessibility and Social Inclusion’. The Abhimukham was held in collaboration with the Museum of Kerala History at Edappally.
A museum is defined by the work it holds and for the same reason museums have great diversity. Dr Venugopal said, “Museums are socially accepted institutions and space that must have social inclusion. By social inclusion we mean to include people from all parts of the society as a part of all museum activities and make all the resources accessible to all. But in the present scenario museums are just surviving, they are not very popular in India.”
Source: Sahapedia
The main aim of the talk was to shed light on the need to make museums more accessible by taking various steps. Improving the infrastructure to make it friendly for the disabled, activities to reach out to the general public and educate them about the historical values of museums, understanding their visitors were a few of the necessary steps to be taken discussed.
By various evaluations, it is concluded that majority of the museums in our country are not disabled- friendly. Speaking from his personal experience, Dr Venugopal added, “Proposals for wheelchair facilities were not granted simply because the authorities pointed out that this proposal is invalid as such a request must come from the disabled association and not from the museums’ behalf. There is clear failure in understanding, as only if these facilities are available museums will be accessible to people from that particular category.”
He said, “Museum authorities have a general feeling that once they set the exhibition pieces their work is done. After that, it is for the visitors to come and visit or not. This needs to change. Also, majority museums provide only visual experiences. The objects are kept behind glass with a ‘do not touch’ sign. This should change, at least once in a week other arrangements must be made to let the visitors touch and feel the objects or even its imitations.”
Words by Raveena Nair Feature image: WikiCommons
