Thinking of museums as representations of different identities – whether it be historical, cultural, artistic or anything else – wasn’t really something that had crossed my mind before my chat with Hasini Haputhanthri. Consultant, researcher, and author of the newly released book Museums, Memory and Identity Politics in Sri Lanka was rapt, to say the least, when she described how her love affair with museums started, and how it eventually culminated in this book, which, according to Open University of Sri Lanka Postgraduate Institute of English Director Harshana Rambukwella, is probably the first attempt within the island to document the status quo of museums in Sri Lanka.
The monograph is a result of careful and meticulous research and documentation on the part of Haputhanthri, whose focus on 25 out of more than 100 museums in Sri Lanka, is both fascinating and enlightening. Her global approach to the entire subject, which is a result of her own experience of having lived and worked in different countries, is refreshing and relevant when analysing our local museums and how they either measure up or fall short in the grand scheme of things.
The purpose of her study was to arrive at an evidence-based understanding of how museums in Sri Lanka deal with memory and identity politics.
With a somewhat vague memory of strolling into spaces that were derelict, gathering dust, and a far cry from being engaging, I delved into the monograph.
More than places that gather dust
The focus of the research that went into the book is rather broad, and goes beyond simply evaluating the identity politics of the narratives of the museums to examine the nature of their outreach, exhibition display quality, and educational and promotional activities. The research evaluated the 25 selected museums under six evaluation criteria: accessibility, display/exhibition quality, narrative strength, interactivity and pedagogy, public relations and promotion, and relevance to memory/reconciliation.
One of the main objectives of the study was to understand the existing educational programmes within museums. The role of interactive and engaging education that combines the rich context museums can provide is something that is really close to Haputhanthri’s heart. She feels that globally too, the museum scene is becoming very important now, and that these institutions – which are essentially conservers of artifacts of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance – are no longer considered old houses with objects within them that are gathering dust.
Citing an example, she spoke of how she was at the Kandinsky gallery of the Modern Art Museum in New York. Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was a Russian painter and art theorist who employed geometric shapes in his abstract art. On seeing a group of kids at the gallery – on the floor, working on something – Haputhanthri thought to herself: “Oh this must be an art class.”
But upon further observation, she found out that the class was in fact a Mathematics class. Haputhanthri was instantly intrigued. “I just feel that museums are beginning to play very critical, important roles, in terms of education, in terms of social integration and peacebuilding, and public awareness; and we (Sri Lanka) have a lot to catch up on in terms of what’s happening globally,” she shared.
Haputhanthri sincerely feels that our country’s education system can work hand in hand with museums to make the study of history much more engaging and interactive for students. As Harshana Rambukwella yet again keenly observed in a virtual discussion held on Monday discussing Haputhanthri’s monograph: “Museums should be interactive and people centric spaces.”
An old-fashioned, adventurous girl
As a young girl having schooled in Panadura which is her hometown, Haputhanthri dreamed of becoming an Egyptologist. “I was crazy about Egypt and the pyramids as a kid, because I used to read a lot of National Geographics and all of that,” she shared, adding that Museology wasn’t something that she got hooked on until much later in life.
Trained as a sociologist at Delhi University, India and Lund University, Sweden, Haputhanthri went on to specialise in Oral History and Museum Anthropology at Columbia University, New York. It was here that her passion for museums and everything about them sparked.
“When I got back (to Sri Lanka), I tried to understand the museum situation here, and there was not much work done on it,” she said. Describing herself as having a love for all things old-fashioned, it was only a matter of time before an opportune time arose in her life, with her place of work, to study museums in Sri Lanka. The research that preceded the book was conducted as a preliminary study for the Memory Culture Unit of Strengthening Reconciliation Processes in Sri Lanka (SRP) project of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
An isolated story?
As the book details, due to their very nature and a requirement for lots of funding and careful upkeep, museums have been the exclusive domain of state institutions in Sri Lanka. Today, however, there are a few private museums run by individual trusts, social organisations, religious institutions, etc., but the majority still remain under state departments.
One of the key insights garnered from this study and documentation is that Sri Lanka has been slow in reinventing museums answerable to the present and the future requirements. To quote the monograph: “Sri Lankan museums still seem saddled with the nationalist rhetoric ironically rooted in colonial wonderment, displaying rather stoic, outdated, and often exclusionary curatorial vision. Thus, a museum is popularly understood as a bastion of essentialised ‘culture’, leading the museums to be archaic, aloof, less interactive, and disconnected from the day-to-day cultural realities of the people.”
The book further explains that Sri Lankan museums tend to reflect and reiterate the dominant identity politics found in state-structures, education, and mass media. To quote the book: “This is seen through the poor conditions or lack of museums reflecting other cultures, other histories and lack of curatorial vision for an inclusive future even when the collections themselves are vastly inclusive and rich.”
For Haputhanthri, this poses a problem. “A lot of the time, the more national museums are based on a more dominant story of history that we know and we learn about in school as well. It’s not only the museums that are like that; I would say even the school syllabus of history is pretty much like that. So we are a little weak in terms of including our lesser known story.”
Candidly sharing that she herself found the study of history in school – “always a history of kings and wars” – really boring, Haputhanthri feels that our museums don’t reflect the melting pot that is and was Sri Lanka.
“Even though we have a very rich connection that is multicultural, which shows that we have been a historically diverse community, with people from Persia, India, and Malaysia, and have a lot of archaeological artifacts, coins, and all of that which tell those stories, we don’t really project that so well in our museums,” she explained.
“That’s one weakness that I see, in terms of peacebuilding and museums,” she continued, adding that if we are serious about building an identity – a national identity which includes all minorities, different religions, and different people – then we have to be a lot more inclusive in the story we say about ourselves.
As detailed in the recommendations she lists at the end of her book, there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way people, the state and museum professionals consider museums and the roles they play in today’s society. Matching up to global standards when it comes to recognising the immense value these institutions hold for fostering and maintaining cultural dialogue between countries, promoting tourism, providing safe and engaging spaces for study for eager minds, and also providing a 360° and unbiased view of our identities, is a mammoth task that ideally needs to start now. The task would no-doubt require the cooperation of our state, private entities, well-wishers, schools, and the general public.
“Museums, Memory and Identity Politics in Sri Lanka” is available in Sinhala, Tamil and English. The book can be purchased online at the Historical Dialogue office at 25, Elibank Road, Colombo 5. You can also call 0777 270 812 to reserve your copy.
