The Museum offers schools and NGO groups the opportunity to critically and creatively engage with its permanent collections and contemporary exhibitions through interpretive gallery visits and workshops.
Guided Tours
Educational groups may book themed tours, which are curriculum and age appropriate, on request. Particularly popular are tours that focus on the history, development and cultural heritage of Mumbai. Groups may also book interpretive tours of the Museum’s temporary special exhibitions. Our tours can be conducted for audiences of varied age and interests.
Tours Details
Museum Tour
With a member of the Museum’s curatorial team, explore the history, architecture and collections of Mumbai’s City Museum.
History of Mumbai
Join the Museum education team on a guided tour using the maps, photographs and models to illustrate the history and development of Mumbai. Participants will also explore the lifestyles, culture and occupation of Mumbai’s many communities.
How objects tell stories
Join us in exploring highlights in the Museum’s collections and engage in interpreting their meanings and stories.
Registration Details
Duration: 1.5 hours. Conducted on request, as per availability. Weekdays only, except Wednesdays.
Cost: Free of charge (Museum entry fee applicable).
Language: English, Hindi and Marathi
Contact: For more information please contact education@bdlmuseum.org /+91 22 23731234
Workshops
All workshops are pre-registered and include an interactive discussion focused on a particular display or collection, followed by an associated creative activity. Popular workshops inspired by our permanent collection include silver-work, pottery, mapping memories and spaces, Ragamala painting, and puppet making.
Workshop Details
Colours and Shapes at the Museum
In this workshop, participants explore shapes and colours using the Museum building and collection. The session begins with an interactive walk through the Museum galleries, followed by a collage art activity.
*Please note that the group must include an adequate number of adult chaperones, at least one for every five children.
Recommended Age: 3 - 6
Pottery
Participants engage with the Museum’s pottery collection, the highlights of which were created by students from the Sir J.J School of Art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and consider the impact of western art teaching on art and craft traditions in the city. The workshop includes a worksheet activity followed by a hands-on session in which participants create their own clay pots using different techniques.
Recommended Age: 6+
Silver-work
Focusing on the Museum’s collection of Raj Silver, participants engage with the techniques and ideas behind this unique art tradition. The workshop includes a worksheet activity followed by a hands-on session in which participants practice traditional techniques on silver foil to create original designs.
Recommended Age: 8+
Mapping Memories
Using the Museum’s extensive map collection as a starting point, participants explore Mumbai’s evolving topography and fading histories through this workshop. The importance of perspective, often understated in the study of Cartography, is highlighted during an interactive walk through the Museum’s Mumbai Gallery. Participants then record their own experiences of the city as they see it, creating personalized memory maps that tell the story of their very own Mumbai.
Recommended Age: 8+
Mapping Stories
Join us on a tour to discover stories hidden in the Museum’s map collection. Then consider the use of perspective and narrative in map making whilst you explore the dense botanical garden and zoo next door. What might you see amongst its trees and animals? Who might you meet? Create and map your very own story in this unique setting!
Recommended Age: 8+
Mumbai’s Communities: Peopling the City with Puppets!
Using the Museum’s collection of clay models, explore Mumbai’s traditional communities - their lifestyles and occupations. Craft paper puppets inspired by contemporary urban Mumbai and work in groups to enact a story with your puppets! What puppet would you create – a movie star, bus conductor, cricketer, dabbawalla or doctor?
Recommended Age: 8+
Storytelling at the Museum!
Explore ways that objects speak to us and discover the stories they hold. Get creative – ‘become’ an object of your choice or role play and put yourself in the shoes of the people who made and used them! Craft your costume and share your story!
Recommended Age: 8+
Ragamala Painting
Looking at the Ragamala paintings in the Museum’s collection, participants explore this painting tradition and learn to read Ragamala paintings. An interactive discussion and worksheet activity is followed by participants experimenting with making their own, contemporary, Ragamalas!
Recommended Age: 6+
Curating Exhibitions
This workshop encourages participants to curate their own displays on themes or stories inspired by the Museum collection. The workshop will focus on the practical and creative aspects of curating museum exhibitions. So come be a curator for the day!
Recommended Age: 10+
Registration Details
Duration: 2 hours. Conducted on request, as per availability. Weekdays only, except Wednesdays.
Recommended number of participants per session: max. 60.
Cost: Free for BMC schools and NGO's. For private schools or CSR groups: INR 150 per student.
For ‘Colours and Shapes’: INR 75 per student. Materials provided.
Language: English, Hindi and Marathi
Contact: For more information please contact education@bdlmuseum.org /+91 22 23731234
Image Gallery
