A Conference on Critical and Creative Approaches to Making Collections Public
India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) in collaboration with
Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi and supported by
Tata Trusts and
Titan Company Limited.
The two-day conference
Old Routes/New Journeys will bring together artists, curators, historians, writers, archivists, and museum professionals to engage in discussions on the creative and critical ways in which collections and materials in archives and museums can be made more accessible, more public. The sessions on both days will also raise questions on issues of interpretation, ethics and legalities that both institutions and creative practitioners experience while working in museums and archives. The conference will conclude with exploring the questions – how can we re-imagine archives and museums in the 21st century, who are they for, and what do they wish to convey? Structured around presentations, panel discussions and talks, both days will conclude with performances that have emerged from archival research.
Despite the many changes that have swept India in recent years, one institution that has remained relatively unchanged is the government museum. Can these museums cease to remain what we call a vastu sangrahalaya, ‘a collection of objects’, and, evolve into sites where new connections can be drawn between objects, related environments and cultures, from which new narratives and histories can emerge? Can collections of other kinds – materials in archives for example – become important resource material for creative explorations that speak to diverse audiences? These are some of the questions that led to the Archival and Museum Fellowships initiative at India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) four years ago. This programme stresses on the need for re/searching, re/viewing that which is forgotten, and re/using materials found in archives and collections, in order to create multiple narratives. The outcomes and knowledge that have been created through select projects will be presented at the conference. Rather than limit the discussions to only IFA supported projects, the conference will also engage with other experts who have worked towards making archives and museums spaces of contact and connections between people, scholarly material, artworks and ideas, and whose practices reflect challenges of the contemporary world.
Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan is pleased to present
Martin Groh (Research Associate, The documenta archiv - documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH, Kassel, Germany) who will present an archive that has grown out of one of the most important exhibitions in the world, Documenta, in the city of Kassel, Germany.
The conference is free and open to all.
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