The Museum of Conflict

Abstract

Conflictorium: The Museum of Conflict was established in Mirzapur, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, in 2013, as a small community museum in the western part of India committed to its local context. The area has a history of ongoing communal tensions between the various communities that coexist within it, and the museum directly responds to the demands generated by this particularity. The exhibits at the museum consist of a collection of participative/immersive contexts that accumulate narratives of the experiences and memories of its visitors, thereby working through the trauma embedded in the everyday. By identifying as a museum, the space routes the validation that being part of a museum collection forges to acknowledge the legitimacy of the contemporary history of its community, thereby lending them a sense of belonging. This sensitivity to the audience that the museum addresses is particularly unique in India, where state-funded museums have historically had limited active engagement with their viewing publics. This article contextualizes the Conflictorium's presence as an alternative museum model in the country's social and political context as well as the existing network of public, private, and community museums.