New Delhi: One museum turns to AI and digital tools, the other to 140-year-old wooden floors and heirloom artefacts. Bengaluru’s MAP and Ladakh’s Balti Heritage Museum and Cultural Centre may take different routes to heritage preservation, but both aim to bring art and history to as many people as possible.
MAP, a sprawling cultural space with galleries, a library, an auditorium, and a conservation centre, leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make art interactive and accessible. In contrast, the Balti Heritage Museum is a 140-year-old family-run house that preserves the culture, lifestyle, architecture, and artefacts of the Balti community, an ethnic group of Tibetan origin from Gilgit-Baltistan, now mainly in Ladakh’s Turtuk and Kargil regions.
“The aim is to bring together two amazing individuals with a shared passion for India’s diverse heritage, but who are reaching this space from very different journeys,” said the coordinator of the conversation between Abhishek Poddar, MAP’s founder-trustee, and Wasim Ashour, founder of the Balti Heritage Museum.
Part of the Heritage Dialogue series by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture on 14 September, the session at the Humayun’s Tomb Museum focused on ‘The Modern Museum Experience in India’.
The hall was filled with art and culture enthusiasts, and the one-hour session, complete with PowerPoint presentations, gave the room a quiet, classroom-like focus. Both founders emphasised that their museums aim to make art accessible, not keep it for the privileged few.
Poddar reflected on the early guidance he received from gurus such as MF Husain, Manjit Bawa, Jyotindra Jain, Swami, Dayanita Singh, and BN Goswamy.
“But not everybody is as fortunate to have them. Why should art be something only for the chosen few?” he said.
A disappearing culture
Ashour’s museum in Turtuk preserves Balti heritage, displaying traditional clothing, utensils, household tools, cold storage chambers, and bunkers. He explained that Turtuk, a border village, became part of India after the 1971 war. It had been isolated for decades, so when tourism began in 2010, there were cultural and social upheavals.
To document Balti heritage accurately, Ashour collaborated with institutions such as the Italian foreign ministry and Oxford Brookes University, conducting laser scans of buildings and ethnographic studies of traditional practices.
Two of his experimental projects stand out: the Bunker of Memories, an exhibition showcasing how border life and military presence shaped material culture through objects like repurposed jerrycans, and the conservation of natural cold storage sites, centuries-old refrigeration chambers. These initiatives also provide local employment, especially for women, and engage the community.
Since 2018, the museum has welcomed about 80,000 visitors, reviving traditional clothing, crafts, and practices. Ashour plans AI-powered chatbots, a public library, expanded conservation, and more international collaborations.
“We would also like to grow into an international hub for Balti culture and heritage, which I think is going to be difficult, but with commitment and perseverance, I think it is something that can happen,” he said.
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Digital doors to Indian art
Poddar began MAP around 2015, aiming for a 2020 launch. Covid-19 forced a digital opening, though he admitted he did not know what a digital opening would mean. A colleague’s question, “How do you make a digital memory?”, inspired a 57-minute online launch. It was attended by 30,000 participants instead of 130 planned guests, and an audio recording of voices, rustling saris, and whispers gave the impression of a physical event.
Growing up in 1970s Calcutta, Poddar was shocked that India loses 1 per cent of its heritage annually. He wanted to preserve what he could while ensuring museums were not “dull and boring” and could provide pedagogy.
“Some of the finest exhibitions of Indian art that I had seen until then were overseas. It was astonishing that with all this art, why should the museum experience be what it was [dull and boring]?”
MAP opened physically in December 2022, guided by eight pillars: accessibility, collaborations, conservation, education, inclusion, outreach, partnership, and technology.
Calling MAP “the most accessible museum in all of Asia”, Poddar highlighted initiatives like Museums Without Borders and the Museum in a Box programme, which brings 3D-printed replicas and interactive lessons to schools. MAP Academy, a digital platform creating the first verified encyclopedia of Indian art, now attracts nearly 15 lakh annual visitors. It also offers online courses, including a 10-week textile history series with 5,200 registrations.
After the presentations, the audience eagerly joined in, turning the session from a lecture into a lively conversation. When asked what surprised them about visitors’ reactions, Ashour said he keeps seeing diverse audiences—the museum is reaching more people by the day.
Poddar, meanwhile, was struck by how MAP has become a lively spot for young people. Couples come for first dates or anniversaries, and the café, galleries, and library buzz with activity. A visitor recently told him that he took a woman to MAP on a first date and now they are celebrating their first anniversary there.
“It was amazing that I never realised that MAP had become a dating adda,” he said, noting that some come for the art, others for the company of art lovers.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)