Holding Space for Conflict: Unpacking the Multi-scalar Exhibition of Conflict at the Conflictorium — Museum of Conflict, Ahmedabad

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v22i1.4335

Keywords:

museum, India, museum space, conflict, spatial transformation

Abstract

This article analyses the Conflictorium – Museum of Conflict, founded in 2013, in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, and its use of museum space both within its designated location and the broader socio-spatial surroundings of the neighborhood and city. The museum is discussed as a site that offers space to experience and engage with conflicts about religion, citizenship, caste, identity and belonging in the historically and contemporary, polyphonic processes of Indian nation-making. By unpacking four, partially interrelated, dimensions of spatial transformations in the Conflictorium, the article offers an empirically-grounded understanding of museums’ different spatial strategies to convene information, create affective atmospheres and memories about contentious aspects of contemporary Indian society that might not be attended to in state-run museum or political discourse. In sum, the article argues that museum spaces can function as socio-spatial and -technological infrastructures that forge for the cultivation of consciousness about conflict, and the radical interrelatedness of India’s diverse social fabric.

Author Biography

Friederike Landau-Donnelly, Radboud Universiteit

Assistant Professor in Cultural Geography

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Published

04/24/2024

How to Cite

Landau-Donnelly, F. (2024). Holding Space for Conflict: Unpacking the Multi-scalar Exhibition of Conflict at the Conflictorium — Museum of Conflict, Ahmedabad. Museum & Society, 22(1), 51–66. https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v22i1.4335

Issue

Section

Museums Refigured