- A series of webinars on questions encountered by museums in France and SL
The Embassy of France in Sri Lanka and the Maldives is proud to present “Rethinking Museums”, a series of webinars on a range of questions encountered by museums in France and Sri Lanka, scheduled to take place from 1 to 8 December 2021.
The conversations will take place on Zoom Webinars, while being broadcasted live on the Brunch (@brunchlk) Facebook page. You will also be able to find the replay of the conversations on the Embassy of France YouTube channel.
Creating museums
The first session will focus on how to define the mission and values of a museum and build its business plan, while touching on which common problems are encountered by newborn museums today. This workshop aims at sharing good practices of cultural engineering.
The panellists for the event will be Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka (MMCA) Chief Curator Sharmini Pereira, Agence France-Muséums Director General Hervé Barbaret, Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris Heritage Curator and Director of Collections Aurélie Samuel, and GIZ Sri Lanka Strengthening Reconciliation Process in Sri Lanka (SRP) Director Christoph Feyen.
In conversation with Sharmini Pereira, she informed us that she would be talking about the MMCA. “It’s the first museum in Sri Lanka dedicated to modern and contemporary art and it is an initiative that will be relaunched and relocated on 7 February at Crescat Colombo. It will be an amazing relocation as we’re going to be in a public space.”
Touching on the vision of the museum, she commented that it is to create a museum of modern and contemporary art for the public, students, and returning tourists, adding: “It is a building that we see as being accessible to people through the programmes that we offer as well as the trilingual work we do. Our vision is also really informed by trying to overcome what is a mindset here; that modern and contemporary art is something that is not seen as important, whereas the art and culture from the past is seen as important.”
She highlighted that their vision is to help create awareness and an understanding that modern and contemporary art is as important to conserve, learn about, and create meaningful curatorial exhibitions.
She also added that she will speak about some challenges in setting up such a museum and named a few to be training staff and building capacity. She explained that in Sri Lanka, we don’t have the people who are needed and required to work in a museum as specialists. Another challenge she will be focusing on is the museum’s undertaking to do its work trilingual, essentially delivering their social media content and all activities in all three languages (Sinhala, Tamil, and English), which is something that no other institution – public or private – does at the moment.
Shifting the museum narrative
Rethinking Museums will elaborate on how to dissociate a museum’s narrative from its past and the methodology to deconstruct an art history centred on archaeology. The question of if museums stick to a chronological exhibition of their collections, will also be explored.
International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) Research Fellow, independent consultant, and author of Museums, Memory, and Identity Politics in Sri Lanka Hasini Haputhanthri; Department of National Museums Deputy Director and University of Kelaniya Visiting Lecturer in Museology Senerath Wickramasinghe; and political scientist, historian, and decolonial feminist Françoise Vergès will speak at the event.
Building an inclusive museum
Set to be held on 3 December, this session will explore how museums interact with society and how civil society and activists fit within museum practices. The panellists are University of St. Andrews Associate Lecturer and Museum of Religious Freedom Curator Vindhya Buthpitiya; Institute of Social Development Tea Plantation Workers’ Museum Director Periyasamy Muthulingam; Palais de la Porte Dorée Director General, historian, Sciences Po (Paris) Prof. Pap Ndiaye; and Musée du Louvre Chief Curator and Director of Mediation and Cultural Programmes Dominique de Font-Réaulx, who will discuss the possibilities of building museum policies that are inclusive of other communities and audiences as well as how outreach programmes play a role.
Considering museum sustainability
This session, to be conducted on 7 December, will focus on whether conservation is compatible with sustainability and the possibility of museums becoming environmental activists.
The speakers at the event will be Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle Curator and Project Manager Kinga Grege; The Shift Project Project Manager and AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research, and Exhibitions International Development Officer Anaïs Roesch; Geoffrey Bawa Trust Curator Shayari de Silva; environmental architect and conservationist Sunela Jayawardene; and Academy Of Design (AOD) Strategic Advisor – (BA) Programme Chani Perera.
We spoke to Shayari de Silva, an architect whose practice focuses on curatorial and editorial projects, to better understand what she will be speaking about during the discussion. She explained that at the Geoffrey Bawa Trust, they ensure to take an approach where sustainability needs to be at the forefront as they further develop their already recognised museum programmes.
As de Silva joined the Geoffrey Bawa Trust in 2018, where she now manages the Geoffrey Bawa Collections, including the programmes around exhibition, publication, and conservation, she is just the person to speak to on the topic of sustainability in terms of modern and contemporary art. In conversation with us about the topic of sustainability going hand in hand with museums, she commented: “The word ‘sustainability’ is really loaded, but from a professional stance, it includes environmental, economic, and social considerations.”
De Silva also added that she is currently working on the forthcoming exhibition “It is Essential to be There: Drawing from the Geoffrey Bawa Archive” and the accompanying publication of the same title.
Contested histories in archeological museums
The final session, which will be held on 8 December, will discuss the role that identity politics play in archaeological museums while questioning if there is an illusion of neutral museology and whether these museums play a role in the fight against illicit trafficking of cultural goods. The panellists are International Council of Museums (ICOM) Heritage Protection Department Head Sophie Delepierre, University of Kelaniya Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology Director, Theertha Artists’ Collective Co-Founder, senior artist, and archaeologist Jagath Weerasinghe; senior architect and conservator Ashley de Vos; and National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) Operations and Research Officer and Archeologist Catherine Barra will explore how archeological museums are built on different practices compared to art museums and how to present conflicted past and presents.
