MUSEUMS are establishments where representative objects of cultural and historical importance of a nation are showcased for the public. As we go deep into the genesis of the word ‘museum’, we learn that it is derived from the word ‘muse’ in English adopted into its vocabulary from the Greek word ‘mousa’, meaning ‘muse’ or ‘think deeply’ over something, and ‘mouseion’, meaning the seat of the muses via Latin by the early 17th century. Muse in Greek and Roman mythology refers to each of the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne who preside over science and arts. So, the origin and evolution of today’s museum is indicative of its importance in the realm of its visitors thought process of mind.
In other words, a visitor does not merely look at the objects displayed on the shelves of the gallery. The objects engage a visitor to have a pause in rounding the display, stand for a while and ponder over them sparing some time to admire and reconnect them to the past by placing them in their time and context. That is the point a museum exists and that is the role it plays to make people aware, educate and relate them to the past — the culture, tradition and heritage — their roots. It is where visitors finds their attachment to others — the binding blocks of building a nation.
The approach to managing museums across developed and the developing nations differs widely today. The European colonial powers of the 15th-19th centuries — Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, the British Isles, France and Germany — have had the thumb rule of hiding and protecting the looted artefacts from colonised territories. Access to the objects in their majestic museums were limited, not denied altogether though. The history attached to them were distorted and rewritten as closely as possible to justify that those prized objects taken away from the colonies were meant only to serve the better interest of protecting and preserving them with due care and patronisation lest these could be lost with the passage of time.
It is only recently that visitors to the western museums, especially of the newer generations, ask for more detailed information on the treasure severed from their origin by the ruling powers. They demand more access to hidden or restricted collections of the Victoria and the Albert museum gallery of London, the British Museum, as the authority there is hidebound by laws preventing the ‘de-accessioning’ of the materials looted during the imperial past. In its November 2024 issue, the Economist published the views of the director of V&A Museum, Tristram Hunt, who said that the new days ahead would witness more transparency and accountability to the visitors in term of its galleries turning inside out which means that the authorities are now ready to answer the oft-asked ‘where have you hidden all the other stuff?’ type of queries. After this shift in museums management, others like the Powerhouse Parramatta in Sydney, Louvre Lens in the former coalfields of northern France and Boijmans of Rotterdam are opening up their back of the house storage to more trustfully engage the new audience.
On the other side of the tale, the lands where the cultural treasures were forcibly taken from namely, India and African countries under the European colonial powers are continually raising their concern to get back their artefacts from the famous museums across Europe and the United States. Yet, the demand for an immersive experience in the gallery, being more — near the moment of time — of the objects displayed traditionally is on the rise in the newly techno-advanced Asian lands such as China, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand. To address this the public and private collection, houses have meaningfully used the AR and the VR technology to draw more and more on the newer faces of the ‘connectivity generation’.
Museums are like hubs of inter-generational tacit and explicit knowledge transfer on a nation’s history and heritage. And as such, the very design and the structure of a museum are also important to draw member of younger generation into it. Moreover, the contents, the art of presentation, entry and exit management and amenities inside the establishment matter. In fact, the look and location of a museum is often considered its intangible asset to welcoming visitors that has impact on the total number of visitors, revenue earned and overall reputes of the museum. It has been revealed in recent studies that the deeper and personal is the engagement of the individual visitors with the contents through use of audio-visuals, live presentations and other connectivity based immersive experience, the greater is the annual turnover of the visitors of the younger generation into a museum. And, the South Asian states are increasingly adopting to these strategic management tools of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 to foster their national history and culture.
On home ground, from 2020–2024, the Bangladesh National Museum, responsible for preserving and presenting the nation’s historical evidences and cultural objects to the visitors since its inception, witnessed visits of 42,887 students from 537 educational institutions from across the country. Among the students, about 90 per cent are from the mainstream, Bangla-medium schools, colleges and madrassahs while a dwindling 10 per cent cent came from various English-medium institutions from which it could be inferred that learners of comparatively well off families do not demonstrate similar interest to the age-worn, monotonous display of objects at the museum as they feel a kind of cultural cringe being more exposed to digitally managed shows, both physically and through virtual means. Moreover, it has also been learnt that only about 6.14 per cent of the total antiquities are on display at the museum mainly because of the scarcity of physical space at the present establishment site. It is, therefore, understood how impracticable and unviable it would be in terms of finance and other resources needed if the management opted for mere spatial expansion of the house.
However, the national museum has plans in and around its air to make the show running with digital and artificial intelligence-based technology turning it into a time-embracing one under the helm of its newly formed executive council headed by a young and talented architect, which the authority cannot afford to end unavailing any way.
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Md Mukhlesur Rahman Akand is joint secretary to the cultural affairs ministry.
