The concept of curated walks in museums or heritage sites refers to an
activity where visitors traverse the physical space occupied by the object(s)
of interest, while being mediated by a guide or a curator. These walks
allude to a three-way dialogue between the audience, the mediator and
the object. This paper will investigate how curated walks and the dialogues
they engender function in museum spaces, and what it entails for
production, comprehension and consumption of knowledge about artefacts
and heritage among visitors and curators alike. The crux of the exercise
is to comprehend how visitors and curators understand and experience
museums through curated walks, and how the meanings generated from
this interaction are distinct from conventional modes of interactions
occurring in museum spaces. The ways in which people derive meanings
out of their interactions with their surroundings is immensely diverse,
depending upon age, worldview, and socio-political and economic
backgrounds. By focusing on the issues of spatial mobility in three case
studies from New Delhi, this paper argues that museums need a gradual
paradigm shift from directing people towards objects to allowing people
to interact with objects in a free manner. The possibilities of engaging
with spaces, or with objects, in their own terms would create a rich
repository of human experiences for the audience within and without
museums. Allowing a free-flowing network of conversations, dialogues
and articulations would create a dynamic, inclusive and democratised
curator-audience experience.