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Has Ahrlar section of Topkapi Palace to serve as museum

Sunday, November 26th, 2006

ANKARA - Turkish Daily News

The Has Ahrlar section of Topkapi Palace will be converted into the Islam, Science and Technology History Museum, in collaboration with the Culture and Tourism Ministry and Greater Istanbul Municipality.

According to a written statement released by the ministry, the museum will feature material and equipment related to astronomy, geography, the marine sciences, geometry, chemistry, physic, optics and architecture.

The Has Ahrlar section of Topkapi Palace, which underwent restoration and is currently owned by the Greater Istanbul Municipality, will be handed over to the Culture and Tourism Ministry, which will utilize the building as a museum, the statement said.

Professor Fuat Sezgin, director of the Institute of Arabic-Islamic Sciences at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, will also contribute to the organization and display of works in the museum, reported the Anatolia news agency.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Posted in Asia, Europe, Museum News, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Calligraphy in Hiroshima exhibition calls for peace

Tuesday, October 31st, 2006

Mainichi Daily News

HIROSHIMA — Hundreds of calligraphic works sending out a message of peace were unveiled Sunday as the 24th Hiroshima peace calligraphy exhibition got underway.

Ken Fujiwara, general managing editor of the Mainichi Newspapers’ Osaka Head Office, second from right, and others cut the tape at the opening ceremony of the Hiroshima peace calligraphy exhibition in Hiroshima’s Naka-ku.

The exhibition, which opened in the atomic bomb museum in Hiroshima’s Naka-ku, presented 349 works that received honorable mention and 628 specially chosen works, selected from over 5,000 entries sent in from around Japan.

Third-year junior high school student Yudai Matsumoto, 15, a resident of Hiroshima’s Asakita-ku, and 74-year-old Hiroshima resident Kinson Inoshita were jointly awarded the top Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology prize. In a presentation ceremony on Sunday, the exhibition’s planning committee chairman Ken Fujiwara, general managing editor of the Mainichi Newspapers’ Osaka Head Office, presented certificates and trophies to Matsumoto, Inoshita and other top-placed entrants. (more…)

Posted in Asia, Museums of Conscience | No Comments »

Chinese museum curators to be offered training residencies in US - People’s Daily Online

Wednesday, October 18th, 2006

Chinese museum curators to be offered training residencies in US
People’s Daily Online, China - 18 hours ago
… a non-profit US cultural organization, pledged on Wednesday to resume and expand its study programs in the United States for Chinese museum curators in the …
Foreign Curators Visit South Korea Korea Times
US Delays Rule on Limits to Chinese Art Imports New York Times
all 4 news articles

Chinese Museum Curators to Be Offered Training Residencies in US

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a non-profit U.S. cultural organization, pledged on Wednesday to resume and expand its study programs in the United States for Chinese museum curators in the next two years.Angelica Zander Rudenstine, the foundation’s program officer for museum and art conservation, said at the 2006 Sino-American Museum Forum that the foundation would “help develop a new generation of museum leaders” by offering study programs for another six or seven Chinese curators in 2007 and 2008.

The New York-based foundation started the programs for Chinese curators in 2001 in cooperation with the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China.

The program benefited 11 Chinese curators until 2005, when the foundation decided to suspend the program for two years in order to arrange the Sino-American Museum Forum.

The three-month program would enable Chinese curators to undertake “residencies” in U.S. museums, where they could learn how “American museums are structured and administered, and how they organize their scholarly, curatorial and educational activities”, said Rudenstine.

The New York-based Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Washington-based Freer and Sackler Galleries, and the Ohio-based Cleveland Museum of Art would assist in the program.

“Previous programs have proved to be effective and successful,” she said.

Zheng Xinmiao, China’s Vice Minister of Culture, said China had more than 2,000 museums, 80 percent of them set up in the last two decades.

“These museums face a lack of qualified leaders, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation program could help improve the situation.”

(Xinhua News Agency October 19, 2006)

Posted in Asia, Museum News | No Comments »

At Gandhi National museum, books on the Mahatma gather mass appeal - Delhi Newsline

Monday, October 2nd, 2006

At Gandhi National museum, books on the Mahatma gather mass appeal
Delhi Newsline, India - 21 hours ago
… Shankar Chacko didn’t know it was the Mahatma’s birthday, until a movie with a message on Gandhigiri brought him to the Gandhi National Museum at Rajghat …
Photo expo on Gandhi Hindu
all 2 news articlesNew Delhi, October 2: London-based hotelier Shankar Chacko didn’t know it was the Mahatma’s birthday, until a movie with a message on Gandhigiri brought him to the Gandhi National Museum at Rajghat on Monday.

Chacko says he had heard about the museum earlier but decided to visit it only after he watched Lage Raho Munnabhai.