Twelfth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

Ten years after the end of the civil war, coming to terms with events and the reconciliation process remain key issues in Sri Lanka. A travelling history museum has now been launched to help explain the past to communities that have been long divided along ethnic, religious, and language lines. It’s about time is a travelling history museum that takes a dynamic living museum experience to communities that have not been to a museum. One of its key objectives is to depart from the conventional museum paradigm in Sri Lanka and present a new experience to its visitors that adress to their five senses. The other main objective is to present the last 70 years of post independence history ( 1948-2018) which is not included in the school curriculum. The narrative arc of the museum centres around four key questions that takes into account what are made to believe as history, is history fact or persptive, do people’s stories matter in history making and finally what makes us Sri Lankan? The museum, entitled ‘It’s About Time’, uses historical documents, art, films and cuisine among others to illustrate the events of the past seventy years. Over the next three years, the travelling history museum will be visiting thirty locations around the country and expects to receive over 350,000 visitors. For additional details see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8h8F2o1TP0&feature=youtu.be