Museums to arrange performances, exhibitions to entice visitors

JAKARTA (JP): City-owned museums are organizing a series of exhibitions and art performances in a bid to attract new visitors and share information about the country's history and heritage, museum executives said on Monday.

"For years, museums have only been visited by student groups and tourists. It means that museums are not popular among the people," director of the Art and Ceramic Museum, Abdulrachman, said at his office on Jl. Pos Kota in West Jakarta.

He said the events were part of the city museum and restoration agency programs to attract people to visit museums.

"The city museum agency will grant each museum Rp 2.5 million (US$357) as initial funds to organize events.

"Each museum management should find donors if they think the funds provided by the agency are inadequate," Abdulrachman said.

He said the forthcoming events would not lead to an immediate boost in museum visitors, "but at least, it will inform people that there are different kinds of museums in the city".

A similar viewpoint was aired by the head of the administration section of the Maritime Museum in North Jakarta, M. Hutagalung, who said that travel agencies did not include a visit to museums in their tour schedules.

"One time I saw a group of tourists visiting the old fish market, but the tour guide did not bring them to our museum which is only across the road from the fish market," he said.

Both the Maritime Museum and the Art and Ceramic Museum will hold seminars on respectively the history of Indonesian maritime technology and ceramics. The latter museum will also hold next month several contests for children, including ceramic painting and kite flying events.

Bigger events will be held by the management of the Puppet Museum in West Jakarta from Nov. 28 through Dec. 4.

Puppet Museum director Rini Hariyani said the seven-day event would include a bazaar, puppet playing contests, puppet story telling, puppet painting, puppet kite flying and puppet story writing.

The events will be held at the museum on Jl. Pintu Besar Utara, West Jakarta, and in the Fatahillah park in front of the museum.

The director of the Jakarta History Museum, Tinia Budiati, said an exhibition to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the first Amsterdam-Jakarta flight would be held on Nov. 24 at the former Cililitan airport in East Jakarta.

"We will exhibit photographs, books, a diary and archives of J. Van der Hoop, a Dutch citizen who joined the first flight.

"A team of two Dutchmen who are retracing the historic journey on a truck are expected to arrive here on Nov. 24," she said.(ind)