The Conquest of the Museum. Appropriation and Self-Design of the Tribal Museum Bhopal by its Indian Visitors

India is currently experiencing a critical discussion about museums: can they play a significant role in cultural life at all? The museum in India is a colonial import without real roots in its own culture; it was introduced by the British authorities at the beginning of the 19th century. Until today this colonial foreignness leads to the fact that museums are often not really embraced by the Indian public.

Against this current background, the book by Ina Roß provides the first comprehensive empirical study of Indian museum visitors, using the Tribal Museum in Bhopal as an example. The work focuses particularly on the use and needs-oriented adaptation of the institution by its visitors. It reveals a high level of agency and creative competence of the audience in shaping the museum experience, which has not been perceived in this way before. Furthermore, the study opens up intimate and detailed insights into a non-Western cultural institution that proves to be not only a place of collection and exhibition, but also a dynamic social space that visitors take ownership of in a self-initiated and everyday-oriented way.

This new form of postcolonial museum design between institution, source community and audience offers inspiration for museums worldwide and can serve as a stimulus for the further development of European institutions in times of globalization and the development of an increasingly transcultural audience.

An event of the Weltmuseum Wien Friends.

Duration: 45 min.
To participate in the event, all guests need a valid museum ticket (or an annual pass, a KHMembership or a Weltmuseum Wien Friends membership).
Registration: friends@weltmuseumwien.at (limited number of participants)
Meeting Point: WMW Forum