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Showing posts from September, 2019

Indian Air Force Museum

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Indian Air Force Museum in Palam, New Delhi houses a rich collection of memorabilia of Indian Military Aviation and displays the history of Indian Air Force. The museum comprises of Annex and hanger. The Annex houses portraits, photographs of Indian officers from 2nd World War, wing commanders, air chief generals and other Indian officers associated with Air Force. The museum also showcases gifts and momentoes presented to these officers. Hanger comprises of different types of military aircrafts. Apart from photographs and aircrafts, there is a towering statue of Flying Officer Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon who was awarded Param Vir Chakra for his heroism, supreme gallantry and flying skills . The museum is open on Wednesday-Sunday from 10 AM to 5 PM. The entry is free for all.

Smell Assembly- A cache of smells

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Smell Assembly is an exhibition that is currently on display at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Saket, New Delhi. It is an artistic research by Ishita Dey and Mohammed Sayeed, curated by Akansha Rastogi. The aim of the exhibition is to know your "mizaaj". Mizaaj is an urdu word that describes your mood or disposition. Therefore asking what is your mizaaj is like asking what is your 'blend'. In order to achieve this, they have put up 5 bottles and one has to sniff all the bottles and choose one. A code is written under the bottle and then one has to follow the instructions. In the final stage it leads you to your mizaaj. There are bottles storing 75 smellable objects that have been collected from 3 sites in Delhi- Majnu ka Tila, fish markets of Chittaranjan Park, ittr shops and spice markets of Purani Dilli. Besides this they have also displayed their research work which is quite informative and impressive. The exhibition is

Trends in Museums

According to the ICOM Statutes adopted by the 22nd General Assembly in Vienna, Austria on 24th August, 2007: "A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment" Earlier, museums focused only on displaying the objects along with its labels which did not engage the visitors much. Hence the monotonous display of the objects gave museums the tag 'boring'. Currently the trends in museums are changing and the museums are becoming more visitor friendly. The museums are becoming more engaging and are trying to break the myth that 'Museums are boring or are for only history/art student'. Trends in Museums- Museums have widened the horizon of their reach through temporary exhibitions, travelling exhibitions, outre

Deccan College Archaeology Museum, Pune

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Deccan College Archaeology Museum (DCAM) was started for the Masters and PhD students of Deccan College which exhibited the artefacts collected by Prof. H.D. Sankalia and Research Scholars from 1939 onwards. The artefacts were first kept for display in the main administrative building in the year 1940 but since Deccan College took part in many excavations and collected huge amount of cultural material, a new building was constructed in 1962 and the first floor was completely dedicated to museum displaying objects of human past. Aims & Objectives of Deccan College Archaeology Museum- The main aim of Deccan College museum is educational. It displays selective cultural remains of the human past and is aimed to provide information on Ancient Indian History Culture and Archaeology to students, teachers as well as general public. To introduce archaeology to general public and school teachers in rural and urban areas, through outreach programmes i.e. exhibiti

Drishyakala Art Museum

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DAG in collaboration with ASI set up Drishyakala Art Museum (Fig: 1.1) at the historic Red Fort’s Barrack No. 4 that was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Fig: 1.1 Drishyakala Art Museum It is a three-floor exhibition space that houses 400 artworks spread over 25,000 square ft. by India’s leading artists from the DAG collection. On the ground floor is Navratna: India’s National Treasure Artists that showcases the works of India’s nine National Treasure Artists- Raja Ravi Varma, Amrita Sher-Gil, Rabindranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Sailoz Mookherjea, Jamini Roy and Nicholas Roerich. (Fig: 1.2) Fig: 1.2 Navratna Gallery   On the first floor,  Popular Prints & the Freedom Struggle,  curated by Paula Sengupta, showcases how printmaking, or the art of the printed picture, became a tool to illustrate a new brand of nationalist literature and propaganda for India’s freedom movement. On the same fl

A thrilling experience: Examination of Egyptian Mummy Tutu, Albert Hall Museum, Jaipur

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During my internship at Albert Hall Museum, Jaipur in 2018 I got an opportunity to assist Mummy Specialist Rania Ahmad who had come from Egypt to examine the Egyptian Mummy Tutu displayed in the Egyptian Gallery of Albert Hall. It was a thrilling experience as I got to be so close to the Egyptian Mummy. For the first time in my life I had seen the Egyptian Mummy without any box covering it. . I felt so elated and excited to witness the examination process and assist Rania Ahmad in taking measurements of the Mummy. Details of the Mummy: ·          Egyptian Mummy of Tutu, priestess of God Chem of Ptolemaic epoch ·          Found at Akhmin, Ancient Panopolis ·          2340 years old ·          Brought to Jaipur 131 years ago in 1887 by Sawai Ishwar Singh from Cairo, and since 1890 it is kept at Albert Hall Museum Examination Process: Ø   Took it out from the glass case with the help of 3-4 people Ø   Placed it on the table Ø   Removed the covers/crust one by on

Dancing Girl- A rare artifact!!

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Dancing Girl Fig: 1.1 Dancing Girl Place of Origin: Mohenjodaro Material: Bronze Dimension: 10.5 x 5 x 2.5 cm Accession No.: 5721/195 This is one of the rarest artifacts from around the world and is a unique blend of antiqueness and art indexing the lifestyle, taste and cultural excellence of people in such remote past as about five millenniums from now. This tiny bronze-cast statue is called ‘Dancing girl’ (Fig:1.1). It was recovered in excavation from ‘HR area’ of Mohenjodaro. The statue is of a thin young woman standing with her right hand on the back  of her hip and the left hand resting on her left thigh.  Her features are prominent with large eyes, bunched curly hair and flat nose. The adornment of her left arm is widely different from the right. Her arms are unnaturally long, has a high neck, subdued belly, moderately sized breasts and sensuously modelled waist-part along vagina, her anatomy. She is shown wearing a necklace with four ‘phalis’ like shaped