Perceiving Museum as a Way to Living Culture: A Step Toward Cultural Sustainability

In the twenty-first century, an essential discussion without any doubt will encompass the significance of sustainable practice to counter the devastating consequences of ecological changes and the loss of our culture and tradition. The Western idea of modernization has brought homogenization in every aspect of its system, and so in the representational practices of cultural narratives. Often indigenous cultures in the museum are represented through architecture and typical display design that customarily become a tool for creating ethnic diversity in a very stereotypical and homogeneous manner. Over the past decades, it is the radical reconfiguration of the meaning, scope, and functions of the museum that tries to appropriate cultural representation in a more sustainable way. With a focus on the curatorial project of Madhya Pradesh Janjatiya Sangrahalaya, a museum of living cultures in Bhopal, this paper will attempt to discuss how the architect Revathi S. Kamath and the artist and creative co-ordinator, Harchandan Singh Bhatty have put an active anthropological engagement to the community to develop a culturally appropriate and sustainable built environment. This paper will discuss the technicality, viewership, and museum’s response to fit into its own rightful identity of a living culture. It will attempt to answer the central problem: How can a museum of living culture as a historical, cultural, and ecological continuum contribute to cultural sustainability?