International Museum Day: Museum of Art and Photography showcases botany, history and social media
On the occasion of International Museum Day, we present exhibition highlights and curator insights from the Museum of Art and Photography.
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International Museum Day is observed annually on May 18 to highlight the vital role museums play in cultural exchange, shared understanding, and peace. The official theme this year is Museums Uniting a Divided World, and addresses the potential of museums to act as bridges across cultural, social and geopolitical divides to foster dialogue and inclusivity.
Many museums offer specials like free entry, customised exhibits, and exclusive tours. Digital campaigns are also launched on social media.
“In honour of International Museum Day, the Museum of Art and Photography (MAP) is celebrating with the people who make museum visits special,” MAP director Arnika Ahldag tells YourStory.
“Our campaign this year taps into a universal truth about how people experience museums — rarely alone, often with someone they love. A parent, a best friend, a colleague, a grandparent – the museum buddy. The idea is to celebrate those companions and reward museum pairs with a year of free visits,” she adds.
Leading up to Museum Day, MAP has been running a short visitor-led social media series. It asks one simple question: Who's your museum buddy?
The campaign culminates with the Museum Day Raffle at MAP. “Visitors are invited to come over with their museum buddy, pick up a character card inspired by the works of Indian Bhil artist Bhuri Bai, write both their names on it, and enter it into the raffle. Three pairs will win a free annual pass to MAP, with winners announced on International Museum Day,”Ahldag says.
This engaging initiative adds a community angle to MAP’s regular exhibitions. In this photo essay, we feature highlights from the ongoing exhibition at MAP titled Paper Gardens: Art, Botany and Empire (see our coverage of earlier exhibitions at this popular Bengaluru cultural hub here).
The five-month exhibition features a historically significant collection of botanical art from the 17th to 20th centuries, built over the last two years. It represents a unique Indian institutional survey of botanical illustration from the subcontinent.
This photo essay showcases some of the 120 works from the MAP collection. There are also artworks from the collections of the Linnean Society (UK), Wellcome Collection (UK), Oak Spring Garden (USA), and the Missouri Botanical Garden (USA).
The exhibits span paintings, textiles, prints, and illustrated botanical volumes. There are works by master artists who produced botanical drawings for the British East India Company officers and naturalists.
As explained by MAP, the Indian subcontinent was the site of extensive botanical surveys conducted under colonial rule. British expeditions sought to collect, classify, and propagate plant specimens — an exercise closely linked to imperial economic, medical and political interests. Botanical illustration was central to this project.
Paper Gardens examines botanical images as both scientific instruments and products of colonial knowledge systems, foregrounding their role in taxonomy, circulation, and visual authority. The exhibition critically addresses the collaborative yet unequal structures that underpinned colonial botany.
It draws attention to the unacknowledged labour of gardeners, plant collectors, indigenous knowledge holders, and artists. Their contributions were foundational to this archive.
The location of this exhibition is particularly relevant since Bengaluru is celebrated as the ‘Garden City of India’. This reputation is shaped by its extensive parks and historic gardens, tree-filled avenues, and the city’s thriving horticultural scene.
The city’s Lalbagh Botanical Garden was once a Mughal-esque landscape belonging to Hyder Ali and his son Tipu. It was taken over by the colonial administration in the 19th century and operated in the vein of other British botanical gardens, becoming a key node in the imperial circuit of global botanical exchange.
The MAP exhibition includes historical photographs of Lalbagh and its surroundings. There are also artworks by contemporary Bengaluru-based artists, whose works engage with the city’s flora.
The exhibition is accompanied by a book by MAP’s research and educational wing, Impart. It has essays by art historian Holly Shaffer, botanist and curator Henry Noltie, and writer Sumana Roy.
The exhibition extends beyond the gallery walls to MAP’s Subhedar Family Sculpture Courtyard. It has been transformed into a living garden through the Living Botanicals project.
It has been designed and built by architect Bhavana Kumar of Kumar La Noce and urban gardener Kush Sethi. In this space, plants native to the subcontinent grow, change, and are cared for over time.
Paper Gardens is curated by Shrey Maurya, Research Director of Impart. It spotlights important historical shifts in the stories of art from across South Asia, pairing rigorous scholarship with broad public accessibility.
“We are thrilled to present this landmark exhibition, dedicated to botanical illustrations from the Indian subcontinent and the largest in scale,” Maurya says.
“Drawing on MAP’s recently assembled collection of botanical art, Paper Gardens reexamines the long-obscured contributions of indigenous gardeners, collectors, and artists who made these archives possible. It is the beginning of what we hope will be fruitful research into recovering these essential stories,” Maurya signs off.
Now what have you done today to pause in your busy schedule and harness your creative side for a better world?
(All photographs taken by Madanmohan Rao on location at MAP.)