ARThinkSouthAsia and Piramal Art Foundation presented a one-day workshop on “Museum Management”. The workshop included an overview of both Indian and international museums, museum management and object documentation, museum marketing and visitor management, and basics of exhibition planning and project management.

This workshop, which was a mix of theory and practice was open to museum professionals and arts managers who organize exhibitions, look after, build and manage collections, and curate large visual art shows and festivals across sectors. It gave an overview of the museum and its important functions and the professional systems that are needed to manage and care for large collections of art objects. The workshop was conducted by museum professionals Kelly Swain of Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and Deepthi Sasidharan, Co-Founder and Director at Eka, a museum advisory that works in the heritage sector with private institutions, government museums and other cultural organisations.

About the Workshop Leaders

Kelly Swain is a seasoned museum professional with fifteen years of experience at the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. She has produced over 40 shows, working closely with over 60 major museums globally and hundreds of major lenders. At the Smithsonian, she was responsible for coordinating all exhibition activities involving all museum departments and served as lead on traveling exhibitions, which entailed developing shows to be displayed at museums all over the world and the underlying financial, legal, registration and operational arrangements to make those shows happen. Ms. Swain’s notable shows include: ‘Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia’, ‘In the Realm of the Buddha: The Tibetan Shrine from the Alice S. Kandell Collection’, ‘Roads of Arabia: Archaeology and History of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’, ‘Yoga: The Art of Transformation’, ‘Echoes of the Past: The Buddhist Cave Temples of Xiangtangshan’, ‘Shipwrecked: Tang Treasures and Monsoon Winds’, and ‘Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur’. She also coordinated and managed ‘Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries’, a show comprising 110 international lenders. Ms Swain has held responsibility for exhibition agreements, finances, and project management including the conceptualisation and implementation of exhibition tours to venues in United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. She has developed a global network of experienced museum professionals and specialized vendors involving all aspects of producing an exhibition. She has also developed standards for traveling exhibitions and conducted training with newly established museum venues in different parts of the world.

Deepthi Sasidharan is the Co-Founder and Director at Eka Archiving Pvt. Ltd. She looks after research and project implementation with private museums, cultural organisations, and 7 government museums. She combines research experience and planning skills to facilitate large-scale collection management strategies including documentation in museums and archives. A Fulbright Fellow and a Fundacao Oriente scholar, Ms Sasidharan works with important institutions including the Hinduja Foundation, Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust, Chowmahalla Palace and Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad and was previously the Chief Archivist at the Tata Central Archives, Pune. Ms Sasidharan has curated shows in photography including ‘Mahallat-The Royal Women of Hyderabad’ at Chowmahalla Palace, Hyderabad, and ‘Nizam’s Jewels’, Salar Jung Museum, Ministry of Culture, Government of India.

Participants: Ruchita Madhok, Arvind Nisal, Bharati Nyati, Sheetal Pawar, Aditi Ranade, Namrata Ganguly, Aashika Cunha, Satish Nandgaonkar, Kasha Vande, Jothi Xavier, Bandhu Prasad, Varda Nisar, Sayed Badrul Karim, Neeraj Bhasin, Radhika Hettiarachchi, Zoe Headley, Reema, Shaleen Wadhwana, Sandra, Usha Balakrishnan, Deshna Mehta, SMM Ausaja, Sudhanva Ranade, Debopama Baidya, Varsha Wilson, Kyle Curry, Vineet Kajrolkar, Priya Lewis, Trisha Kantol, Gauri Kore, Afreed Mehta