BIENNALES AS A CULTURAL MOSAIC

Biennales are known for increasing accessibility and the democratisation of the arts and culture sector. Museum Biennales brings together collections from museums to create a place for engagement and receptivity. Duly crafted experiences and thoughtfully employed curatorial strategies take museums beyond what is seen as a mere treasury. With the objective of filling the gap between art, architecture, culture and memory, they are an initiative to contextualise and review our past, present, and future with immersive experiences, symposiums, exhibitions amongst others.

Dr Alka Pande is responsible for setting-up a number of museums across India. She set up the Bihar Museum Biennale in 2021 and is the Chief Curator for Bihar Museum Biennale 2023. Currently, Dr Pande is a consultant art advisor and curator of the Visual Arts Gallery at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi (India)

Here are five takeaways from the talk:

  1. Footprinting the First - Bihar Museum has become the implementing body on the culture track by footprinting the first ever Museum Biennale, India and abroad. Museums are perceived primarily as sites of antiquities, however, there are various stories of arts, cultures and heritages that lie within them. The Bihar Museum, the biggest and largest museum set up post independent India, started off by connecting Bihar, India and the World with respect to people and cultures in first edition is now taking off as they interrogate museums in the second edition delving into questions that concern curating collections, merchandising, decolonization of museums and technology in the museum space to list a few.

  2. Biennales and visitor experience - Through Biennales, one can see the wonders that lie in different corners of the world with a focus on the magnanimity of range. The Bihar Museum Biennale’s curtain raiser exhibitions ‘Brasilia 60+’ and ‘Nature Strikes Back’ themselves present two ends of a spectrum. The advent of technology in museum space has defined various experiences as well - one can compare, contrast and see museum collections from around the world. Biennales are a dynamic space wherein galleries of antiquities, children’s galleries, galleries of women and deities and all others exist in cohesion without strict demarcations.

  3. The Power of Art - Art transcends spatial and temporal boundaries and as “together we art” in a museum space, we see museums as laboratories of ideas rather than places only meant for preservation. Whether it is indigenous, contemporary or generative, art is the catalyst for expression, knowledge sharing, information and communication. Thus, biennales become spaces wherein art spanning from all continents can come together, speak of the environment, climate change, gender, identity, migration and much more while sparking ways to redefine and rethink. Indeed, art is what moves us.

  4. Cross-cultural dialogues at Biennales - Cross-culturalism is a provider to know, and not necessarily adapt. In a discursive and reflective space like a Biennale, cross-culturalism lies at the heart of it. With a widened canvas, the visitor becomes sensitive to issues and concerns that plague the world while observing the diaspora and cross-section of people that help liven up any culture. Collaboration can never be monopolist and cross-culturalism also allows cultural professionals to make museums (and other sites) revelatory spaces that cater to all kinds of audiences whether through exhibitions, symposiums, technology, culinary arts or performing arts.

  5. Curatorial challenges - The treatment of art has left it as a dilapidated offspring of culture. Lack of funding aggravates the inability to uplift the arts, culture and heritages while we lose innate respect for the presence of art which surrounds us in all aspects of life. Gatekeeping knowledge is another issue that does not allow a free flow of knowledge and the linguistic boundaries sometimes pose another set of problems. However, work that comes out of honest efforts does not go unrecognised despite hurdles and the power of culture helps one engage and evolve.

Museum Biennale places its focus on going beyond being mere repositories and becoming immersive spaces of cross-cultural engagement. With a focus on collaboration, Biennales pave the way for redefining and rethinking cultural representations and preserving diverse heritages.