India, Australia Partner to Upgrade Museums

A series of projects between India and Australia will help Indian museums conserve their art and heritage and become more culturally involved.

AusHeritage Ltd., a network of more than 40 Australian heritage conservation institutions supported by the government of Australia, is lending its expertise to the Indian Culture Ministry. It will help in capacity building and conservation projects in museums this year, beginning with Kolkata.

"We will begin work at the Victoria Memorial Museum in Kolkata in October on a preventive conservation project of paintings and artefacts both on permanent display at the memorial galleries and in storage," explains Vinod Daniel, Chairman of AusHeritage.

Chennai-born Daniel, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, has been working with the Australian government in conservation management since 1995. The focus of his conservation network, the largest in Australia, is the Asia-Pacific region.

Daniel said Secretary of Culture Secretary Jawahar Sircar had agreed to extend "all possible help for the conservation projects in museums."

Built between 1906 and 1921 as a tribute to Queen Victoria of England, the Victoria Memorial Hall has a large collection of East India Company or British Raj paintings in oil, water colours and aquatints by European painters like Charles D'Oyly, Johann Zoffany, William Hadges, Thomas Hickey, Bultzar Silyyns, Thomas Hickey and Emily Eden, who documented life in India under British rule.

Daniel is scheduled to go to Kolkata to take stock of the Victoria Memorial collection.

He added "we are also collaborating with the Indian Museum in Kolkata on a textile conservation project and conducting capacity building workshops in all the museums in the northeastern states of India. Besides, we are also in talks with the Indian government to explore the needs for training and workshops on adaptive reuse of heritage buildings for sustainable tourism in Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai."

In 2007, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) organised a three-day seminar on managing and conserving cultural heritage in India with AusHeritage following which both signed an memorandum of understanding for the promotion of heritage in South Asia.

Image: Victoria Memorial Museum, Kolkata.