Throwback Thursday – celebrating 10 years of the International Training Programme in Mumbai.
Written by Claire Messenger, Manager, International Training Programme.
This week we’re taking a break from the summer programmes to look back at an ITP legacy project. In November 2015, CSMVS Mumbai and the British Museum co-hosted a workshop entitled Creating museums of world stories, with the generous support of the Getty Foundation, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the ITP.
The aim of this wonderful project was to build on and deepen relationships between ITP fellows, and to broaden the educational initiatives around encyclopaedic museums beyond Europe and North America. The workshop saw museum and heritage professionals brainstorm and debate new forms of ‘encyclopaedic’ displays presenting familiar local and national histories in the context of global stories.
It also provided an opportunity for ITP fellows to reconnect with the alumni from across the Programme’s ten annual seasons (2006-2015) and a forum for colleagues to network with museum and heritage professionals from around India and the rest of the world. The Museum held an open application process and selected a group of 45 past ITP participants from 15 countries to attend the workshop.
Additionally we were delighted to be joined by British Museum colleagues and Trustees alongside representatives from UK Museums who partner on the Programme, each of whom hold strong professional and personal relationships with the global network.
The workshop also provided an opportunity to link the ITP to the British Museum’s Leadership Training Programme in India.
We were also excited to extend the invitation to museum directors from the Middle East, Asia and Africa to enhance the workshop’s global representation and to provide valuable input to the delegates’ activities.
A key aim of the workshop was to provide an opportunity for global museum and heritage professionals to brainstorm and debate proposals to develop new forms of ‘encyclopaedic’ museums or displays. These museum displays or temporary exhibitions would present familiar local and national histories in the context of global stories. Delegates were split into mixed-nationality groups and asked to create exhibition proposals based on the concept of Your city and the world – examining how national and international stories are interconnected, through the lens of material culture.
This incredible opportunity to network and share with colleagues from across the global has been one of the highlights of the Programme and our co-hosts, CSMVS, made us so welcome – we cannot thank them enough. Wonderful memories!!
