The 21st century has brought with it a need for expansion in the digital space, and this need has unarguably permeated into the museum sector. Archival materials that have been long locked up behind the doors of museum cabinets are surfacing online, for the whole world to access at the click of a button. Collections and objects that were only physically accessible within museum walls are being showcased on the internet for everyone to learn about. Exhibitions have been filled with technological elements that not only make them accessible across borders but also highly interactive for visitors, sometimes even making each visitor experience one-of-a-kind.

Below is a compilation of articles that we have posted on our blog in the past that highlights the role of the digital medium in various areas. 

Digital exhibitions

In 2021, Science Gallery Bengaluru set a striking example by building two immersive, engaging digital exhibitions titled “Contagion” and “Phytopia”.  

Public Engagement in the Digital Age: Phytopia” talks about the layered approach implemented to engage different audiences. The lack of personal touch in a virtual exhibition has also been spoken about. A Digital Exhibition for the Pandemic”, talks about the format used, which has no fixed narrative but implores the visitor to explore the themes of Trigger, Transmission, Spillover, and Hindsight in their own way.

Un.Divided Identities, ReReeti’s very own in-house production, is another such immersive digital experience that has been transcending previously set boundaries. It is a graphic-novel-style gamified exhibition that allows visitors to step into the shoes of the migrant survivors of the 1947 Partition of the Indian continent. At every step, visitors get to make a choice which will lead the story in different directions, making each user’s experience unique. 

Initiatives like this hugely democratize exhibitions and provide ample space for diverse sources of information – from international organizations, scholars, artists, activists and young adults from across the world. The online medium also enabled them to present rich, multi-layered media and linked content. 

Online museum education

Going digital also means taking learning online. “During the national lockdown, the Center for Art and Archaeology of the American Institute of Indian Studies (CA&A of AIIS), an educational research center based in Gurugram was resilient in adapting to the conditions and offering online learning opportunities in the museum field. In August and November 2020, the center hosted two 5–day virtual workshops for Indian museum curators and outreach and education professionals,” writes Stuti Gandhi in her article “Virtual Museum Curating Workshops”. In 2020, the institution held two 5-day virtual workshops about the seminal themes in museum practice. The workshop, catering to museum curators and educational professionals, was a successful attempt at capacity building for people across the country. 

Museums and the world of social media

When we’re talking about the internet, social media inevitably enters the room. DAG museums, which was in the middle of hosting its months-long exhibition Ghare Bhaire in 2020, was forced by the COVID-19 pandemic to take its cultural activities online. At the time, the museum’s online presence was only a week old, with less than 100 followers on their Instagram page. But the museum bounced back quickly by re-imaging exhibitions in virtual spaces. “As we mounted their images on the virtual walls of the viewing room, we knew that while the experience of negotiating a 3D space was fascinating, the sensory experience of viewing the artworks online falls short of the physical engagement. So let’s not fight a battle that you can’t win, we thought. Instead, give it a new direction that is relatively more difficult to achieve offline. Before long, the experiments with telling new stories in interactive formats led us to Kunstmatrix, a platform dedicated to such experiments. Growing up on a healthy diet of first-person video games, we were drawn to it instinctively,” said DAG in their blog “DAG Museums Online”. Their speedy shift of focus to social media played a huge role in making their virtual endeavours a success. They have now hosted many exhibitions online and have over 11,000 followers on Instagram. 

Building a bridge between the physical and digital

In “How Indian Museums Can Transform Post-Pandemic “, Vinod Daniel, a museum specialist,  adds to the conversation by exploring the intersection of the physical and virtual world. “Possibly one option is to convert most of the physical spaces (especially galleries) to be an open storage space for collections with minimal interpretation, enabling more collections to be on display with all the interpretations being done through digital mechanisms, including through phones, small electronic devices that could be rented on-site as well as through personal computers. This would leverage the strong social media uptake in India as well as increase the audience for museum visits. It would also deliver more content for school children to directly access in their schools. This would also enable more people to access aspects of the collections whether they live in remote parts of India or internationally and drive their curiosity to physically see the collections when they visit the region,” he says. 

A digital strategy for your museum

While most organizations now acknowledge the importance of going digital, this cannot be done in a haphazard, aimless way. Tejshvi Jain, ReReeti’s Founder-Director highlights the significance of having a digital strategy for your museum. “With information being ‘bombarded’ at us every minute, we (the consumers) become selective about the content we want to read. Hence, it is imperative to have a strategy planned for our (museum) content. Is your content fit for the purpose? How is content consumed and prepared? Are we thinking of content or channels of content delivery while we create content? Is our content cycle virtuous or vicious? Has every department’s opinion been considered? Back home, do museums in India have this kind of information? If not, how can we work towards gathering this kind of basic, important data?” she questions in “Content Audit and Digital Strategy for Museums”. The article also touches upon an imperative but often overlooked point: content creation is not the responsibility of just one person or even one department. 

Making your digital content accessible

Lastly, I’d like to bring up the importance of accessibility. Taking your museum online is an almost futile exercise if your online spaces are not made digitally accessible through accessible fonts, colours, layouts, etc. While the intricacies of digital accessibility would take a whole other article to elaborate on, I will leave you with a couple of ReReeti’s Instagram posts that briefly guide you through the subject. View them here and here. 

About the Author

Lakshmi Nagaraj is the Communications Manager at ReReeti. After she graduated university with a degree in Economics (Hons.), she dove head-first into the world of her one true passion – the Indian art scene. Any subject related to the arts will find its way into her long list of “things to read up on”. Her work, both at ReReeti and as an artist revolves around making the art world inclusive of and accessible to the neurodivergent community, the disadvantaged castes and the LGBTQIA+ community. When she isn’t juggling ReReeti’s different social media platforms, you can find her painting or buying artist biographies at local bookstores.