Day Two.

Museums are full of fancy things. Who get’s to choose which fancy things go where? And who’s to say what is fancy enough and what isn’t? Evidently, what is decided to be important by some, start to become important to everyone. They are “accepted” as being museum-worthy. Looking specifically as Art Museums, how do you decide what’s good and what’s not? I thought art was supposed to be for individual human expression. Everyone can do whatever they like, and because it holds value to the one who created it, it holds value. But, instinctively, we need approval. In class, Meghna said, “Art is so much like religion. It should be personal, but it isn’t.” I think we don’t let it be. Maybe that’s because we can’t comprehend a life without consumerism. It’s a cycle, and we’re in it. Everything has to have a price to it. And the most expensive of them all find place in museums.

But then you start thinking, why have a museum in the first place? It’s to create a sense of permanence for us, isn’t it? Isn’t that the point of a structure that we create? For us, and for our future generations. Something for them to remember us by.

So, the museums need to be a reflection of us, at that point of time. The medium used for this reflection is the use of objects, tangible things that say things about us as a society, as a civilization. For a museum to work, one of the most effective things would be to integrate oneself with the objects. You have to identify with these random-objects-that-have-been-given-importance, to understand why they have been given this importance.

The ever-changing audience of a museum has to be considered while making one. It is supposed to be for everyone, but everyone is so different from each other, that it gets very difficult. There are people who want things to be as complicated as possible, and there will be those who want it as uncomplicated as possible. To quote Aakansha, “There are people who don’t understand the concept behind concepts.” So should we have something completely concept-less? Is that even possible?

It’s difficult enough to cater to a large number of people in only one city. How do you create something that a much, much, much larger audience can connect with? I don’t know if it’s possible to do that. We are all too different, divided with culture, language, society, everything. If a museum has to become global, it has to become variations of it, adapting to each place that it will exist in.

But then again, you start thinking. Now, we have the Internet. Is there really a need for any of this? Why would you go somewhere, and see some things, that you could see in the comfort of your own home? The glass cases that objects in museums are put in make it very similar to looking at a screen.

I think the only reason to go to one if for the experience. 

When the discussion of a “Disney-esque” museum was brought into the class, I realized how for it I am. I think education should be fun. If it’s teaching you something, imparting any knowledge at all, it should be done in a fun, interactive and interesting way. To feel how it used to be, not just see. If it doesn’t give me something that I can’t get elsewhere, why would I go at all?