Hello Readers! I am Rajiv Anand and I work as the museum/heritage consultant on the Jainpedia project. I have been involved since April 2009 and will see this part of the project through till April 2012.

I am glad to state that the project is going from strength to strength and developing further its professional links and contacts. It’s now a familiar brand with its major heritage partners, which are the V&A, British Library, Bodleian Library (University of Oxford) and Wellcome Library.

There will be a series of exhibitions and displays at these institutions, which house some of the most important Jain collections outside the Indian subcontinent.

These exhibitions are proving to be an exciting challenge due to issues surrounding conservation, IT devices in galleries and planning with different departments.

Here’s a rundown of what’s going on where.

The V&A in 2010

The first of these exhibitions will be at the V&A in early to mid-2010. This special display will be shown in the prestigious Nehru Gallery.

As a former V&A education and diversity manager, I am utilizing my contacts and developing long-lasting sustainable partnerships across the various museum departments. This is exciting yet a challenge at the same time.

Along with the display, I am also devising a series of learning programmes, such as gallery tours, trails and talks, to complement the beautiful Jaina manuscripts, folios and objects.

I am also in the process of managing the launch of the Jainpedia/V&A display. This will be held in the Sackler Centre for arts education some time from April to June 2010. To celebrate the display, a select and distinguished cross-section of heritage, education and arts professionals and institutions will be invited to attend an event at the Sackler Centre, along with members of the Jain community in the UK and beyond.

The British Library in 2011

At the same time, an exhibition proposal is being formulated with curators from the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections departments at the British Library.

There is expert content advice from Professor Nalini Balbir, who is helping us choose the final shortlist of manuscripts for our planned exhibition at the BL. It will be displayed in the Folio Gallery over April to June 2011.

A subsequent programme of related events will be devised to accompany this exhibition with the British Library Learning and Community Participation Department.

The Bodleian Library in 2012

A draft exhibition proposal has been sent to the Bodleian Library to be considered by their exhibition committee. The proposed date has yet to be confirmed but is likely to be at the beginning of 2012.

A programme of academic presentations, lectures and workshops has also been included in the draft proposal.

Travelling exhibitions

These exhibitions will be complemented by the travelling exhibition side of the project. This will travel across the UK to a large and diverse number of public and community institutions and centres till 2012.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 3:30 pm and is filed under art, education, exhibition, Jainpedia, London, museum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.