Cultural artefacts at display in Hindko Cultural Museum. PHOTOS: EXPRESS
Gandhara Hindko Academy has started a movement to collect cultural assets from people in the old city to preserve them for generations to come. Private owners, who have not been compensated for the tangible pieces of history, are handing over artefacts which are then kept at Hindko Cultural Museum at the academy.
People in the city have already started gifting a number of cultural products to the academy.
From the Walled City
The history and culture of the Walled City is beginning to shape in the form of the collection at the academy. This traces the earliest moments of settlers, including when artisans crafted these items in various parts of the city such as Ghanta Ghar.
Talking to The Express Tribune on Thursday, Hina Tahir who is working as research assistant at Gandhara Hindko Academy, said the collection so far includes a rich diversity of cultural objects such as old dresses, jewellery, utensils, pictures and dozens of other household objects used in the past.
Tahir said the movement to collect cultural items will be expanded further and as many products as possible will be preserved at the museum. She said these artefacts are displayed at the small museum so the public can walk in to experience history.
The researcher added these products “will also be available online so people all over the world can see them and enlighten themselves with our history and cultural heritage.”
All those items collected as gifts from people will be displayed with the donors’ names.
Aftab Iqbal Bano, who has donated a variety of items to the academy, told The Express Tribune, “These are our cultural assets and they should be preserved for the knowledge and enjoyment of our future generations.”
History for sale
There are a few shops located near Bazar-e-Kalan that deal in antiquities; they just offer them to customer as regular products, stripping them of their rich history.
Many small galleries were set up in the city to lure tourists to purchase culture; with uncertainty prevalent in the city, many tourists stopped visiting the provincial capital.
Art lovers and connoisseurs who cannot visit the city due to safety reasons began to export these products.
“These items are the expression of our culture as well as social and economic conditions of the old city,” Javed Nasim, owner of Zaitun art gallery in Bazar-e-Kalan, said.
He said people could no longer afford to purchase these items for their houses. “Most people like to go with the latest trend and fashion, and prefer to use more recent and contemporary pieces in their homes,” Nasim added. “It is essential to preserve them since the past can be saved by the present and our present encompasses a collective identity of all those who inhabit this province,” he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 29th, 2016.
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