V & A had organised an international conference ‘Sackler Conference on Arts Education in March this year. The ojective of the conference was to explore the shifting roles and increasing significance of diversity and equality in contemporary museum and
heritage policy and practice.
Several papers were presented amongst them, one by Mr Ranjiv Anand, IoJ Consultant for the JAINpedia project. His paper is one of the papers published by V & A for international distribution. A copy of his paper is repeated below. Other papers being published at the same time can be seen at:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/res_cons/research/conferences/margins_to_core/index.html
Information available includes conference papers and notes, Christopher Breward’s conference reflections, speakers biographies, video’s and photographs.
The Role of Community Heritage – Rajiv Anand MA, Museum Consultant
British Jain collections represent some of the most important in the world. These collections are important because they are rare or unique cultural objects, and many are sacred objects to members of the Jain community. The information they contain is also of cultural importance. Access to them is therefore clearly important to the Jain community. The JAINpedia project will make accessible, for the first time, a range of manuscripts and artefacts relevant to the Jain religion and culture and will develop a strong sense of community heritage through a series of exhibitions in the holding collections and associated events.
Jain material in Britain consists of approximately 4,000 unique manuscripts in various UK collections such as the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the Wellcome Trust and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Many of them have never been catalogued or put on public display and access to their host institutions is severely restricted.
Written in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Hindi and Gujarati, these are vitally significant pieces of Jain heritage. The majority of the manuscripts are on paper, palm-leaf, and cloth (some dating back to 1200AD). Many of the documents are highly fragile and susceptible to damage through handling and exposure to light.
The 39 Jain collections at the Victoria & Albert Museum, relating to social and religious life will provide a valuable context to the manuscripts. It is of utmost importance to get the Jain community involved in this work as it develops a sense of community heritage pride and an understanding of this ancient world religion to the wider audience. This is done through outreach initiatives in local community centres, multi-faith institutes, local museums, libraries and archives. We are developing a travelling exhibition to complement the major exhibitions/collections where we will be hosting a selection of
community heritage events till 2012.
It is expected that the Jain community will be active in volunteering at locations across the UK and will be on hand to answer questions, lead on creative heritage activities and promote diversity, tolerance and equality for all. Along with this, we will be working in schools and other locations nationally and hope to see the mutual benefits of collaborative working between the mainstream and the Jain community. We will be evaluating all outreach work in looking at how successfully the wider communities have worked with the specific Jain community and to set benchmarks and targets against this.
We hope to influence the mainstream by offering intercultural and interfaith learning opportunities to an artistic heritage they would not normally have exposure to and aim to collaborate with the widest sections of the mainstream public. With this in mind we are expecting to bring new audiences to Jain community heritage and to examine what impact this will have.
We will also be questioning the issue whether we need to redefine heritage and whose story we are telling. We will also look at what community heritage means to the mainstream and how, as an organisation, we respond to differing views of heritage from the mainstream.
We are planning training for teachers on Jainism and will run a series of INSET afternoons at LEAs throughout the country. These will be focused on the educational material produced through the JAINpedia project and will be led by suitably trained staff.
We will also produce a DVD for public mainstream and voluntary sector workers providing an introduction to the Jain religion and community.
Research has been conducted and has concluded that the main beneficiaries of the project will be:
- T he Jain community of Britain
- Mainstream schools and students who study a plethora of religions in the multi-faith community that is Britain today
- The general public of Britain who are interested in a wide range of cultures that make up Britishness in the 21st Cent.
- Further to this, we hope to attract wider families with pre-school
- children, older people, the unemployed, young people and the disabled along with mainsteam visitors to the holding repositories (BL, Bod Library, V&A and Wellcome Trust Library)