In an interview with Tejshvi Jain, Founder-Director of ReReeti Foundation, Joyoti Roy, Head of Marketing and Communications at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) gives us an inside look into what worked and didn’t for the museum, how they overcame challenges and their plans for the future.

1. Would you like to highlight some key initiatives at CSMVS that make it one of the leading museums in India? 

When we look back at the trajectory of the Museum over a hundred years there have been many landmark initiatives that have inspired the public and the museum fraternity. The establishment of the Museum itself is a unique public-private-partnership model. It was Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, Sir Ibrahim Rahimtulla and Sir Vithaldas Thackersay who understood the cultural requirement of early 20^th century Bombay and suggested to the then British Government (Bombay Presidency) to establish a public museum with an objective that the “set up should be educational and not a mere show museum”. Ever since CSMVS has been a Museum ‘For the People-By the People’.

The legacy of public participation has continued and now it is not only the people of Mumbai but also the world community that comes forward to work with the Museum. In 2012, the CSMVS brought the landmark exhibition Mummy: The Inside Story from the British Museum which changed the way in which Indian visitors perceived both Ancient Egypt and the Museum.  This path-breaking exhibition was an important milestone in establishing the CSMVS as an international museum. The success of Mummy: The Inside Story was followed in 2013, with the exhibition Cyrus Cylinder, which displayed the ancient clay cylinder – the Persian king’s decree allowing the Jews to return from Babylon to Jerusalem, considered the first proclamation of human rights, alongside the Ashokan edict from Maharashtra, considered as the first proclamation of human values. For the first time, audiences could see these two important historical objects side by side. In 2017, the CSMVS presented the ambitious and highly successful exhibition India and the World – A History in Nine Stories which highlighted India’s role and position in world history as well as the world’s contribution in shaping Indian art and thought. Today, CSMVS is a unique cultural institute in Asia, often identified as the museum of ideas. CSMVS curates and presents exhibitions and experiences that bring new ideas and critical content to its public.

2. The Museum may have tried various strategies to remain relevant and engaging for the times. Could you share some that worked and a few that did not work?

We have always believed that our role has two aspects – to do things that people will learn from and enjoy, but also create experiences that are new and can help our public acquire new tastes. But whatever we do must not compromise on the authenticity of information, and not create unnecessary sensation or spectacle – our institutional values do not allow that. We are slow and steady in our approach and we seldom jump to react on things. We observe a lot, listen patiently to our surroundings and act when we feel we can contribute meaningfully without compromising on our values.

For example, we were quite overwhelmed by the pandemic at first, like everyone else. It felt very distant to even think that the museum would reopen for visitors. So our first approach was to support each other, so that every staff member felt at ease and had the time to absorb the changes around them. Our management, particularly our Director General allowed for that time and space. For a museum that is not supported by the government, it was indeed incredibly humane to put our staff first. 

Everyone was exploring digital platforms and perhaps we were a bit late in jumping on the wagon, but that went in our favour. Our education department which is led by my colleague Vaidehi Savnal and her team did a brilliant job in gradually establishing a system of conceptualising and presenting digital engagement programmes for children. In March 2021 when we assessed our performance, we found that we had reached out to over 2,50,557 people through our online programmes alone – educators’ sessions, a digital film festival, a storytelling festival, a children’s online contest, our arts engagement, and performing arts festival.

Once the pandemic was on its first decline, we recognized that people were desperate to step out so the first on-site event we organized, most unlike what an art and archaeology museum would do, was a star gazing activity in our heritage lawns for children and parents. This was the only physical event during the Kalaghoda Festival of 2020. We had 1026 participants over two days and it was the most emotional, rewarding and educational experience for our visitors and our collaborators – the Nehru Science Centre in Mumbai.

One of our biggest learning curves more recently has been the way we organize exhibitions in our Children’s Museum. It opened for the public in 2019 and the first exhibition, ‘Footsteps to the Future’ was curated by young children. It was a very exciting moment as this was perhaps the first time that children had curated for children! Strategically, the exhibition worked very well for our sponsors (Bank of America), and our stakeholders. However, once the exhibition opened, we observed that our audiences, particularly children and families did not take to it with great excitement. This forced us to think of newer ways of creating exhibitions for children – we realized that the way in which exhibitions are curated for adults certainly doesn’t work for children. After much discussion and deliberation, and experimentation we concluded that every exhibition we create needs to be ‘experiential’. The two highly successful exhibitions at the Children’s Museum have been ‘Mumbai in a Box’, developed and conceptualised in collaboration with Anurupa Roy of Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust (2022) and the present exhibition ‘Aboard the Spaceship’ which explores the depiction of space and particularly the moon in science and art through audio-visual and artistic encounters, not only in the Children’s Museum space but also across the Museum.

3. Can you highlight one or two of the most challenging projects that you have worked on? 

One of the most challenging projects in the recent times was the comprehensive conservation and restoration of our heritage building. The project is supported by the TCS Foundation and began in 2019. Little did we know that soon into the project the global pandemic will bring it to a sudden halt, posing an imminent risk to both the building’s fabric and the safety of our collections. The most difficult situation arose when the government put a stop to all construction-related work and the labour force started returning to their villages in the absence of enough work and wages in the cities. Many parts of our building were being actively treated. a 360-degree scaffolding was already in place around the building and many vulnerable areas affected by water seepage were opened for treatment.

We had to reimagine everything from scratch – arranging for security, ensuring the health and safety of labour working on site when the government allowed emergency measures before monsoons, ensuring that proper Covid protocols were followed and that none of our collections were at threat. This meant that some of our senior officers – Ajay Kochle, Assistant Director, Administration and Bhavdatt Patel, Administrative officer worked round the clock to ensure the building’s safety. Our security personnel left their families and lived on campus for over a few months to ensure the safety of the building. Recently when we concluded our centenary celebrations, our management honoured each and every one of them. Our conservators and curators, many of who have vulnerable members in their families came to the Museum inspite the imminent risks to protect the collections. The project has received UNESCO’s highest Excellence award for its conservation and they have described it as a ‘heroic’ undertaking. 

4. What are some of the significant changes or initiatives at the museum that one can look forward to in the next few years?

CSMVS has entered its 101^st year in 2023. This is the time for us to solidify our foundations for the bicentenary. The next few decades will focus on research and creation of new knowledge, the environment, cross-disciplinary projects, and collaborations. These will reflect in a majority of our projects going forward. We already began our journey to this end by modernizing and upgrading our state-of-the-art Conservation facility. The project was supported by Citi and launched in 2022. 

In 2022 we launched the CSMVS – Green Museum Initiative which brings back focus on our heritage garden. We are in the process of creating a biodiversity patch.  It will have a butterfly garden, a spice garden, a medicinal garden and a history-themed garden. It will be coupled with educational panels and several on-site activity kits for young visitors.  

2023 will also see the opening of an international exhibition with objects from leading world museums and Indian institutions, much on the lines of the landmark exhibition India and the World: A History in Nine Stories organized in 2017. CSMVS will also be setting up a gallery dedicated to Mumbai and Buddhist Art which will present some of the unseen collections in the reserve of the Museum.

5. What advice would you like to give a fellow museum professional to make their museums financially sustainable and grow?

Financial sustainability is never easy for any institution. Cultural institutions are particularly vulnerable because it is not a government priority. Historically our cultural practices – art, music and dance have been supported and patronized by communities; this is quite different from other countries where substantial investment in culture comes from the government. CSMVS is not financially supported by the government for its activities. For all its establishment costs, as well as programmes it has to raise funds from donations, CSR contributions and grants.

Over the years, CSMVS, under its director general Sabyasachi Mukherjee has developed a multi-prong approach to attaining financial stability – 

a. To pursue small and big contributions, and never to underestimate or disrespect the smallest of contributions; 

b. Understand that people give to institutions they ‘trust’. Institutional integrity and accountability demonstrated over a period of time is the best ‘reason’ for people to choose one institution over another when they make contributions; 

c. Even when funding is adequate, spending should be judicious and ethical.

Most importantly fund-raising is also a creative activity – it needs imagination and experience. During the pandemic, when none of our services was active, we could not raise funds through traditional methods. At this time, our Director General, our Director Manisha Nene and our Senior Curator Vandana Prapanna came up with a unique idea – The Adopt a Museum Object Scheme. My colleague Renuka Muthuswami coordinated the entire endeavour and we created categories of objects – treasures, masterpieces and antiquities. We created a strong appeal  by making people aware that our collections need resources for maintenance and preservation and requested each one of them to adopt an object that would support their care. They would be acknowledged for their support in the object labels and in a special exhibition called ‘Danam’ that we dedicated to our donors. The initiative picked up gradually and we were able to raise a little over 3 Crores through this unique idea. The Scheme is still open and continuously attracts donors.

 

About the Interviewee

Joyoti Roy has been working in the field of museums, conservation, education and culture for over seventeen years. She currently heads  Museum Marketing at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in Mumbai. She is interested in the social and civic role of cultural organizations and believes that arts institutions have the key responsibility to shape and reflect people’s futures. Until 2017 she was heading the Outreach Department at the National Museum, Ministry of Culture, Government of India and has worked for both government and non-government institutions in India.

Currently she is the project curator for the Ancient World Gallery Project at the CSMVS – a collaborative project with the British Museum, State Museums of Berlin and the Getty Foundation.