The Museum has addressed the idea of the ‘public’ not only by looking at how communities were represented through the Museum’s collection but by giving these communities a voice in the Museum. This has involved a multi-pronged strategy that reaches out to different constituencies through contemporary art projects, extensive education and outreach programmes, and the Oral History/ Cultural Mapping project.

The Oral History/ Cultural Mapping project builds a new archive using the original Museum archive of dioramas, models, photographs and prints as a map. It resuscitates and gives new life to the collection through a much deeper engagement with the different communities in the city. It creates a dialectical relationship with the public, enabling new readings of both the collection and the city’s history.

The Oral History/ Cultural Mapping project began with defining the area and understanding the cultural landscape of the neighbourhood of Byculla, in which the Museum is situated. Its aims include the discovery, documentation and eventual sharing of the layered histories, artistic heritage and living cultures of this unique neighbourhood. Research using diverse archival sources will be complemented by site visits, visual documentation and interviews with the local community which will form an oral history archive.

In April 2013, the first phase of this project was initiated with three interns who researched and documented the Byculla neighbourhood. The interns worked under the guidance of the Museum staff to situate the emergence and development of Byculla within the larger historical, cultural and physical context of Mumbai.