International Museum Expo 2023 | 3 experiences to look forward to

The Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro; 2300-1750 BCE; bronze; height: 10.8 cm (4​1⁄4 in.). National Museum, New Delhi, India. The mascot of the museum expo is The Dancing Girl re-presented in the style of Channapatna toys. (Photo by Gary Todd via Wikimedia Commons 1.0)

May 18 is International Museum Day. The theme this year, selected by the International Council of Museums, is "Museums, Sustainability & Well-being". To mark the occasion, the ministry of culture is organizing a three-day expo, from May 18-20, 2023, at Delhi's Pragati Maidan. The idea is to engage and educate visitors about India's museums - the culture ministry manages 383 out of 1,200 small and large museums in the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the expo, which will see the launches of a graphic novel about museums, a directory of India's museums, a pocket map of Kartavya Path and a three-player, 12-level game that will invite players to curate exhibitions with 3D images of artefacts in museum collections around the country.

Speaking at a press conference at Delhi's National Museum on May 10, culture ministry joint secretary Mugdha Sinha said: "We want to move from museums as a sangrahalaya (a house for collectibles) to museums as a cultural space."

Mugdha Sinha, joint secretary, culture ministry, at National Museum.

This shift to "museum as a cultural space" will manifest at the expo in the form of hands-on activities and masterclasses, among other things. Here's a quick look at what to expect.

Gaming and the museum

The museum expo has at least two segments on gaming: a masterclass by XR Central founders Shrey Mishra and Anshul Aggarwal; and a game called Indian Museum Tycoon, developed by XR Central.

To be sure, this is not the first game-in-a-museum in the world. There are some great examples of museums that have used the game format to get people interested in the objects and their histories.

The target audience for Indian Museum Tycoon is anyone interested in gaming, irrespective of age. "It's quite sophisticated," Sinha said, adding that the game has 12 levels, and as players move through the levels, curating exhibitions and learning about exhibits along the way, they are promoted from museum intern to museum director.

The game is expected to eventually be available on the culture ministry website, for the general public to play for free.

While the joint secretary spoke about the game, journalists weren't yet given a preview of it. XR Central is a Gurgaon-based startup with a focus on augmented reality, virtual reality and the metaverse.

Virtual walkthrough of the upcoming National Museum at North and South Block

We've known for a while that the National Museum is moving. Expo visitors interested to see glimpses of the new "Yuge Yugeen Bharat National Museum", can take a virtual tour of the museums that will be spread over 950 rooms plus a basement. "It takes about 5 minutes," Sinha said.

Panel discussions

The panels that have been invited for discussions are interesting for two reasons.

For one, they indicate an expansive view of what is a museum and what is worthy of being kept in it. A case in point is a panel discussion that includes Anusha Yadav of Indian Memory Project, puppeteer Choiti Ghosh who developed the Museum of Ordinary Objects and Museum of Possibilities' Vaishnavi Jayakumar, among others.

These museums hold tangible and intangible exhibits. Their way of collecting and valuing things is different too. The Museum of Ordinary Things, for example, has objects that visitors donated to the museum - objects that were important to them but not necessarily valuable in monetary or national-history terms.

Two, the panels also became a way for the organizers to make the expo inclusive. "South, North-East, western... we've covered all parts of the country," Sinha said.

What else

At a time when museums are looking for ways to connect with young people, the ministry of culture has added gaming and design elements in the programme for the International Museum Expo from May 18-20, 2023, at Pragati Maidan, Delhi. Expect terminals where three people can play Indian Museum Tycoon at a time, and activities for kids like "excavations" where they can dig up "dummy relics and ruins" in shallow pits.

Merch at the expo will include a set of illustrated cards depicting 75 Indian museums - 75 because the expo is a part of what culture minister G. Kishan Reddy called "phase 2 of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav". Each illustrated card will have information about the museum it depicts.

The mascot for the expo, a reinterpretation of the Dancing Girl figurine in the style of Channapatna Toys, will be revealed on Day 1 of the expo.

There will also be a by-invitation dinner where diners will answer questions to determine their dosha. They will then be served a dosha-appropriate meal. In Ayurveda, there are three types of body composition: Kapha, Vata, Pitta.

There are a total of seven masterclasses, and cultural performances towards the end of each day. Expect a Dastangoi on museums at 7pm on May 18.