Museums to arrange performances, exhibitions to entice visitors
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)