Museum to bring alive artifacts of the past

An old telephone booth that takes you back to another era, a telegraph machine that sings songs of the mysterious dots and dashes and weighing machines that tell a story are some of the artifacts that will be showcased in the Museum of Communication and Transit that is being conceived to come up in the Old Telegraph building adjoining Cubbon Park Metro Station in the city.

The museum is an initiative of the Art in Transit project that seeks to blend the relics of the past with futuristic technology. The museum will be a recollection of obsolete artifacts refurbished and reactivated by new and innovative technology and transformed into interactive installations.

“In the museum, the audience will be able to find themselves in the yellow pages, the telegraph machine will play music through mysterious dots and dashes, obsolete weighing scales and STD public phone booths will transform into story telling devices,” said Karthika Sakthivel, a student of the Srishti Institute of Art and Design and Technology. She is the part of the project ‘Art in Transit’, a collaboration between the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation and Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology.

“The phone booths, telegraph machines, cassettes, vinyl records and players were an integral part of communication and recreation in the last few decades and have died a rapid death owing to the invasion of technology that is changing the world. The very things that helped us connect with each other are rusting away in old junkyards. Our initiative is an effort to restore value to these products which once-upon-a time were a critical part of our daily life,” said Karthika.

“The idea behind setting up of the museum in the old telegraph building is that it will be surrounded by the General Post Office, BSNL and the old telegraph office which are eternal testimonies of our evolving  communication mediums through the years and have stood the test of time that add value to the  presence of the museum,” she said.

“I sourced the weighing scales from a junkyard trader in Uttar Pradesh and got it shipped here. We have also sourced different obsolete items from various parts of the country. The idea is to revive the relationship we once shared with these devices by blending them with new age devices to restore value,” said Karthika.

The museum will also include a space for community gathering and recreation, public murals and comics that seek to connect the old telegraph office with the New Cubbon Park Metro station. The museum will also include student education  and study tours, guided walks, oral history and research,  workshops among others.