NEW DELHI: “If you cannot come to the museum, the museum will come to you” is the premise of the ‘Museums on Wheels’ project, currently touring the national capital with a focus on building an appreciation for arts and culture.The Mumbai-based Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya’s ‘Museum on Wheels’ has traversed urban and rural areas in several parts of India, spreading knowledge about art, heritage and culture.
Having begun its maiden Delhi tour on May 18 as part of the International Museum Expo, the state-of-the-art buses showcasing with artefacts, replicas, models and dioramas will visit prominent places in the city till May 28. There is no entry fee.The project has been running successfully for the last seven years and its two air-conditioned buses, which are customised to house mobile exhibitions, aim at surpassing the conventional museum experience and bringing history closer to people in cities as well as remote areas.The two buses are themed on ‘In tune: The journey from sound to music’ and ‘100 years of CMSVS’.
“The basic idea of the project is if you cannot come to the museum, the museum will come to you. We recognised that education in arts and culture is very important especially in the rural areas,” Atreyee Chakravarty, an education facilitator associated with the project, said.“In cities, there are various museums but in remote areas, many people have not studied history and have a limited exposure to such things. So, to introduce people to the concept of museums, this project was started,” she said.“When the project started, the first bus was given by the Ministry of Culture and after that, the project has been supported by CitiBank for the past seven years,” Chakravarty added.