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  • Indian Museum
  • Indian Museum
  • Indian Museum

Indian Museum

Records Available In: Bengali, Hindi, English, French, Russian, Japanese

Introduction

Indian Museum is one of the largest and oldest encyclopaedic museums in Asia. It has its origin linked to the Asiatic Society, founded by Sir William Jones in 1784 which later on emerged as a separate entity called the Imperial Museum. Later known as Indian Museum Calcutta it was established in the year 1814 under the stewardship of a Danish botanist named Nathanial Wallich. Presently, it is a museum of national importance under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Initially the museum was incepted as "an institution for the reception of all articles that might be sent to illustrate Orient manners and history," over a period of time it has widened its scope and avenue by becoming a modern museum with a vast repository of indigenous and international exhibits that are spread across six sections such as art, archaeology, anthropology, zoology, geology and botany. Apart from these sections, there are other units to help the museums, viz., library, publication, modelling, presentation, photography, conservation unit. There has been a paradigm shift in the concept of museums across the world and the Indian Museum is no exception. Now, the Indian Museum endeavours to re-image their institution as an integral part of the community, making the museum more inclusive by radically changing its concept. The museum is envisioned as a space where more and more public participation is encouraged so as to make the museum more interactive as well as audience-centric. The symbiotic relationship between artefact and events is reflected in the way in which the objects are organized in the museum such that it connects with the people and their culture. Each artefact housed in the museum has a story to tell about the history and culture of India and the larger Oriental World. The Indian Museum aspires to become an active part of the community at par with other international museums as an institution that allows you to meet with your friends and neighbours to discuss thoughts and opinions. Indian Museum has taken up the initiative to cater to different segments of visitors as per their tastes and liking. In order to achieve this goal, the museum is formulating and designing exhibition and organizing events to make them more interpretative, entertaining and engaging. The generation of new content and experiences so as to make the museum more interactive and interpretive through storytelling and by using different digital gazettes and software have been taken up by the museum. Indian Museum organises permanent and temporary exhibitions and brings out publications after undertaking scientific researches in the field of art, archaeology and anthropology. It organises events and seminars connected with artefacts housed in the museum and documents them in digital version for the dissemination of knowledge to people across the world.

Information

Address: 27, Jawaharlal Nehru Road, Park Street, Kolkata - 700016
Established: 1814
Institution Head: Shri Rajesh Purohit, Director
Hours: Tue-Fri: 10:00 am to 6:30 pm/ Sat-Sun: 10:00 am to 8:00 pm
Phone: (033) 2252 1790
Website: https://indianmuseumkolkata.org/