On 21st September 2023, forty students with one faculty, Prof. Bushra Kureshi visited Conflictorium Museum; Old city Ahmedabad. The Conflictorium Museum is located in Mirzapur, at the heart of the ‘Old City’ of Ahmedabad. The Conflictorium – Museum of Conflict is housed in the Gool Lodge. It is a participatory museum that addresses the ideas, questions and structures. The emphasis is to facilitate dialogue through art and culture. The museum has seven experiential galleries on the ground floor, each designed to provoke conversations on conflict, not only out there, but also within. The first floor consists of gallery spaces, residency rooms and an auditorium, utilized for events such as exhibitions on various themes, workshops, book readings, cinema screenings and performances, from time-to-time. It was opened on 14th April 2013, and it was designed by Avni Sethi. It acts as a space for idea generation which is enabled through arts and creatives. The goal was to look at culture and conflict from a different angle. The gallery has drawn inspirations from animal fables, and unfolds various sensory mediums.
The major areas of learning for the students were:
- The memory lab- preserving personal conflicts
- Moral compass – 1st of the 100 copies of the constitution
- Empathy alley – Silhouettes of political leaders
- Sorry tree – apologetic feelings towards events in life
- Conflict quadrangle – Inland letter writing
The purpose of the trip was to enable the idea of dialogue generation and the feeling of conflict and different cultures from the past. It was a learning trip for the students as a part of the Indian values and philosophy course. Overall, this trip to Conflictorium was about learning and experiencing the idea of conflict and to understand the art and formation of dialogues.
