AMARDEEP BEHL

Amardeep Behl, founder of design studio AB Design Habit & Co. Pvt. Ltd, popularly known as Design Habit, has specialised in Exhibition Design from NID Ahmedabad.

This specialism provided Amardeep Behl an edge in the realm of museum design, wherein he adopts a holistic approach to spaces incorporating narratives, as opposed to the more widely seen static glass-cased displays. Amardeep and his team at Design Habit work towards re-imagining museum experiences as more immersive and narrative environments, going against the “Do Not Touch” ideology that exists in most of our museums.

He has been involved with projects like the DS Group Corporate Museum, Sadhu Vaswani Mission Museum and the Virasat-e-Khalsa Museum. The use of technology, animatrix, kinetics and dynamic lighting appear to take centre stage in his practice. The Virasat-e-Khalsa Museum at Sri Anandpur Sahib is one of his notable works. In all the galleries here, one can see a mesmerising interplay of light, audio and visuals, all created to depict the story of the foundation of the Sikh religion and its present embodiment in the culture of Punjab.

ASHISH ANAND

Ashish Anand, the CEO and Managing Director of DAG, formerly Delhi Art Gallery, has shaped the prestigious art gallery into the multi-location art company that it is today. With galleries in New Delhi, Mumbai and New York, DAG regularly partners and collaborates with several museums all over India and are important players in the contemporary museum sector. They also have a physical museum space, the Drishyakala Museum at Red Fort.

In March 2022, DAG under Ashish Anand put together a very successful exhibition titled ‘Iconic Masterpieces of Indian Modern Art,’ at the gallery’s two new spaces in the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai. The exhibition featured 50 rare works by 50 artists from over a span of 200 years.

One of their latest undertakings, described by Ashish Anand as “the single-most important project” embarked on by DAG in the last three decades, is that they have acquired the house of veteran painter Jamini Roy, with plans to soon turn this into India’s first private single-artist museum. The Jamini Roy House Museum will have permanent collections, exhibition spaces, a library, a museum shop, a cafe and will hold art events and workshops.

MUGDHA SINHA

From the batch of 1999, IAS officer Mugdha Sinha from the Rajasthan cadre has recently been appointed as the Joint Secretary, Ministry of Culture, Government of India. She has decades of wide ranging experience in governance, policy making and International trade negotiations.

Sinha’s appointment as Joint Secretary, Ministry of Culture has so far, happily, brought India’s museums into the limelight. The three-day International Museum Expo 2023, which is being held in New Delhi, comes as a first for the Indian museum sector.

The mega museum expo will include expert-led masterclasses on lighting and sound in museum architecture, museums in the metaverse, scientific storage techniques, as well as exhibitions and film shows. There will also be special highlight events such as the unveiling of the Expo mascot, an image of the prehistoric Dancing Girl from Mohenjodaro, which will be stylised in the Channapatna toy form, the launch of a graphic novel on museums and a directory of Indian museums, and cultural programmes and performances.

The International Museum Expo will see participants from countries around the world including the UK, USA, France and Russia, in addition to culture and tourism ministers from all across India.

ROOBINA KARODE

Director and Chief Curator of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), Roobina Karode believes museums are much more than spaces to display historical objects – she sees them, more importantly, as places of interaction and confluence. With postgraduate specialisations in art history and education, Roobina has been key to KNMA’s consistent efforts at being a platform for diverse educational and public programming to lessen the gap between arts and the public.

KNMA is the first private art museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art in India, and has been intent on bringing art closer to the public. It places great emphasis on public outreach programmes through workshops and other activities featuring artists, writers and curators. In Roobina’s words, “It is important to bring modern and contemporary art to the public, but equally important to facilitate conversations and discussions around it.”

Roobina has curated more than 25 landmark exhibitions at KNMA and has been the curator to exhibitions on Indian artists at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, Musee Guimet in Paris, and co-curated at the Met Breuer in New York.

SHALINI BANSAL

Co-founder of HopOn India and Museums22 (by Desiwalks Tours Pvt. Ltd.), Shalini Bansal has done her post-graduation in Design from NID, Ahmedabad and has been involved for over 2 decades in versatile design projects and design management work across both large impact projects and private sector. Shalini’s contribution to museum tech and storytelling has been significant. Her innovative startup has not only been integral to digitising many Indian museums, but has also developed effective communication assets such as mobile applications and audio guides to democratise the old-world stories of Indian history hidden within museum collections.

Such assets help mobilise public engagement through easily accessible storytelling narratives by reaching those who matter most in their language. It can engage diverse stakeholders, overcoming geographical, socio economic, language and other barriers through its democratic reach and give them deeper insight into museums and their purpose. Not only that, it supports museum teams by reducing workload and providing them data in real time to make sound policy decisions, not based on intuition, but on data. Shalini Bansal’s startup continues to invest in adding more intelligence to their dashboard to provide richer insights into user behavior and help museums revolutionise their understanding of user experience.

SIDDHARTH BATHLA

Siddharth Bathla, an architect, industrial designer, and the founder of Design Factory India, applies a multi-disciplinary approach to design and follows the fundamentals of creating experiential and narrative spaces. He believes that India is a growing nation and still understands the necessity of museums and cultural spaces. With the aim of transforming cultural spaces for a better tomorrow, his team works towards user-integrated solutions, while respecting structure originality. Through international awards and events, the designer continues to inspire and evolve society. As the founding member of The Design Village, he has now taken a keen interest in imparting design education across various domains.

With expertise in heritage upgradation of ASI protected sites like Red Fort, Taj Ganj and the Victoria Memorial Hall, Siddharth has designed over 25 influential museums. Starting with designing and curating the largest museum of India - Smritivan Earthquake Museum in Kutch, Design Factory India is now designing upcoming museums in Gujarat like the Tana Riri Music Museum, Archaeology Museum, Human Biology Museum and Jamnagar and Junagarh Regional Science Centres.

In March 2023, Design Factory India organised a three-day D-Stories Museum Biennale titled ‘Creating Cultural Destinations,’ which, with support from the government of Gujarat, brought together experts from India and abroad to celebrate design, museums and storytelling. The museum biennale was held at the Smritivan Earthquake Museum in Bhuj.

S. VIJAY KUMAR

S. Vijay Kumar is the co-founder of the India Pride Project, originally his passion project, that works tirelessly to repatriate India’s lost heritage. The year 2022-23 saw a record number of historic objects that were traced and returned to the country. His aim is for the central government to notice their project and set up a department specifically for such crimes.

The world’s first crowd-sourced heritage recovery project, India Pride Project works with the help of its globally-networked group of volunteers. They have initiated several campaigns and projects to raise awareness and demand the return of Indian artefacts that are displayed in foreign museums or held by private collectors. S Vijay Kumar’s group usually does this with the use of social media, online petitions, public demonstrations, and legal actions to help identify and authenticate Indian artefacts that are found abroad.

Kumar is also the author of The Idol Thief: The True Story of the Looting of India’s Temples (2018), which revolves around the smuggling carried out by Subhash Kapoor.

MUSEUM INFLUENCERS 2023