International Museum Day 2025: Exploring how five major museums of Kolkata are heading towards technical progress

Museums are treasure troves of information, entertainment, and recreation! From children holding on to their parents’ hands to some on their laps admiring artefacts inside a museum is a common sight. Teens with notebooks trying to decipher exhibits and taking notes or replicating sketches to help in their academics is also a common stance. But what is slowly changing over the years is the nature of the exhibits or the delicate balance between what one understands as a traditional display of collection with title cards to being more interactive-oriented through the introduction of progressing technologies including, artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), 3-dimensional approach, robotics, and more. The newer technologies explain the exhibits to the best of their ability, giving out correct facts in a jiffy and act as a virtual friend throughout the museum tour.

This goes in tune with the theme of International Museum Day 2025 – The future of museums in rapidly changing communities. Another important aspect of the museum is the niches themselves. While the museum may serve a broad category like science, art, politics, etc., the galleries are now being given a theme that is relatable to what is happening around us. Keeping this in mind – and the visual distress of the planet – Science City introduced its gallery on Climate Change.

The days of feeling disconnected from melting icebergs in the poles—even while sitting in Kolkata—are long gone. Upon entering the Climate Change gallery in Science City, a unit of the National Council of Science Museums, named ‘On the Edge?’ one comes face-to-face with a large screen of visuals showing the impact of climate change. They feel the chill of the poles and the heat of the sun rays – such is the powerful impact of this gallery. Be it the changing lifestyle of the Polar population, the effects of animals becoming extinct, the cloudburst at Kedarnath to an immersive experience of drowning in the storm, the two-storey gallery has it all. The gallery presented facts showing the future without being preachy.

Curator Subha Sankar Ghosh explains, “We realised that climate change is something which we must address because Kolkata is experiencing the effects through heatwaves, sea level rise, and cyclonic storms.”

He continues, emphasising the importance of storytelling, “One element that has always attracted people in the past and will continue to do so in the future is stories. Digital technology here is a tool in storytelling. The traditional concept of displaying objects in a museum has been backed up by the latest digital technologies available so that each display is a story, an immersion where the visitor feels as if they are a part of it. But we are conscious of not bogging down the visitor with technology. We have used AI, AR , and immersion through the makeshift environment, projection mapping, and a digital wall. When the Honourable Minister of Culture, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, visited and inaugurated the gallery in January, he wanted it to be replicated across all major metros. We are in the process of developing it for the Ranchi and Guwahati Science Centres. We are thinking of revamping the Dynamotion Gallery.”

Museum galleries are a two-way communication. Visitors no longer have to stand puzzling over exhibits—only to forget them minutes later. In fact, they are so immersed in being a part of the exhibit that it is almost impossible to forget the experience. When we entered the newly inaugurated gallery titled, ‘Lost at Sea’ at the Birla Industrial and Technological Museum (BITM), a unit of the National Council of Science Museums, the sound of waves reached us immediately. On seeing the projection of moving waves across the floor on a sandy beach, of course, there were some selfie moments for the Instagram feed. Many even decided to sit down and stay put – for where else can they feel like they’re floating in Digha or Mandarmani beaches in the middle of the city?

Director of BITM, Arnab Chatterjee explains, “We opened the gallery to talk about our immediate environment. The focus is on the sea because it plays a crucial role in our life.” Those who have visited Western aquariums, which are almost floor-to-ceiling in length, would cherish the feeling of having one in Kolkata. But wait, there is an option to make your own fish virtually through the revival of a Japanese folk art and release them in that aquarium, only to see them floating across the large hall. Arnab goes on, “In the virtual aquarium, we have placed a QR code which, if you scan, you can paint a few sea animals and they can be released to live-swim in the virtual environment. This is where image processing has been used. The format in which the sea animals can be painted is an old Japanese art form called Gyotaku. The entire space has been transformed into an aquarium through virtual reality. The seashore has been done through augmented reality via the magic mirror. Also, there are QR codes on several exhibits around the museum which, when scanned, show the actual functioning of those exhibits.”

Talking about future prospects, he states, “We aim to have a number of facilities in the future, like a dome-type theatre projection. Our older galleries are developed on broader subjects like physics. But now, the approach has to be pinpointed and related to our daily lives.”

If history was boring while growing up, then it is time to have some fun! The centrally located Alipore Museum, which used to serve as a functional correctional facility, is a museum complete with historical facts and data, including the lives of Dr BC Roy, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, and others as they were held captive within the walls. Real places have been turned into exhibits showing the nature of living inside the erstwhile correctional facility.

While the paths, walls and cells have written history, life-like statues, audio-visual narratives, and interactive kiosks have made it visually appealing for one to understand the museum and live it again. Interactive kiosks present inside the gallery – especially the ‘Freedom Fighter Gallery ’— allow a visitor to use them via a touchscreen to navigate topics or see videos on loop and understand them better. It’s a fun way to present facts.

And don’t miss one of the oldest and largest museums in Asia: the Indian Museum, Kolkata. While its major attraction for decades has been the Egyptian mummy, along with a large collection of excavated objects, fossils, geological objects, sculptures, coins, paintings, and much more in the traditional indexing, it, too, is acknowledging the need to introduce technology to cater to changing times.

In fact, interestingly, on the occasion of International Museum Day, one of the activities it undertook was a panel discussion on AI and how it can be harnessed by museums, titled Indian Museum & AI: Bridging Technology with Tradition. It was an interesting discussion about how both need to co-exist to attract visitors. In fact, the museum has long been using technology like 360-degree views on its online website and, with its progressive and liberal approach towards everything, one can anticipate technology playing a bigger role in the days to come.

The Museum of Astronomy and Space Science housed within the Indian Centre for Space Physics (ICSP) is a hidden gem. Housing 12 galleries, the museum was inaugurated by astronaut Rakesh Sharma in 2023 and is dedicated to Kolkata’s first aeronaut, Ram Chandra Chatterjee and aerospace engineer, Stephen Hector Taylor-Smith.

Director and founder, ICSP, Sandip Kumar Chakrabarti mentions, “The museum has over 1,200 exhibits like an actual strand of Neil Armstrong’s hair, autographed exhibits of astronauts, scientists, physicists, 3D-printed models, Meghnad Saha’s handwritten diary, exact replica of Apollo 11, and the Wright Brothers’ first plane model.”

Despite being more academically oriented, it still incorporates technology. He goes on to state, “One room is a 3D space theatre where you put on glasses and visually experience being inside a space shuttle.” Sandip explains, “AI is used in the robotics of our balloon experiments, where it is command-based navigation or auto- GPS triggered.” Before signing off, he says, “We plan to develop catalogues and touch-based kiosks narrating the stories behind the objects on display in the future, and also plan to develop holographic models.”