Victoria Memorial Hall (VMH) is going to open its refurbished first floor gallery to the public soon.
An exhibition — Biplabi Bharat — on the revolutionaries and their role in the Indian Freedom movement will be showcased.
A total space of 5,000 square feet with four interconnected spaces make up the gallery on the first floor.
“The first floor of VMH does not have as much space as the ground floor. We had small galleries with oil paintings of nationalist leaders... and others. Now, we have created a longish hall by adjoining two adjacent spaces, the restoration lab and a store to create a 5,000 square feet space. The refurbishment and exhibition were done on a budget of Rs 3 crore,” said Jayanta Sengupta, curator, VMH.
A major source of materials for the exhibition, work for which commenced in the middle of the Covid pandemic, came from the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, the National Archives and the National Library.
The exhibition will use a lot of newspaper clippings and original artefacts.
“Revolutionary Sachindranath Sanyal’s letters and jail notes give us an insight to a day in the life of a jailed revolutionary. We got a trunk from the Nehru Memorial....Inside the trunk were Mauser guns used by the revolutionaries, a biscuit tin full of gunpowder complete with the electric circuit of a bomb,” said Sengupta.
The exhibition will have six segments. There will also be a projection point with a “which revolutionary do you resemble most” that is sure to draw crowds.
The VMH is also putting up two cloak rooms at the north and south gates where visitors can deposit their bags before entering the hall.