Partition Museum curates online events to allow visitors to sneak a peek into the pages of history

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, September 11

The Partition Museum has remained shut since lockdown was announced in March this year, but it has opened its virtual space for visitors who want to sneak a peek into the pages of history. The one-of-its kind museum in the world has been running several educational programmes since its inception and its archives had only been accessed through visits to the heritage place, until the pandemic stuck. Its virtual galleries and tours have made an attempt to find audience across the globe amid restrictions.

The museum had recently hosted first online art exhibition in collaboration with Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi. It showcased 26 exclusive works by 16 eminent and upcoming artists of India. The exhibition was received well and it featured several prominent artists from the time when partition happened.

Rajwinder Kaur, curator of the museum, said they had been receiving a great response from visitors on their online platforms, accessing their virtual archives and gallery. “We have been consistently uploading significant audio-visual archives on our Facebook and Instagram pages. We share links to access the virtual tours, specifically curated to focus on individual event or otherwise,” she said. Most of the links to these virtual tours or access to archives is specific in nature and is free for all. The visitors can access its oral history library and artefacts and art work through its official website. It also has videos of eyewitnesses’ accounts.

As a long term measure, the museum is also creating a permanent virtual gallery, work on which is under progress, that will have archived images from Partition, train massacre stories, videos, arts, paintings, real oral accounts of eyewitnesses and survivors.