Goa Chitra Museum

About

The Goa Chitra is an ethnographic museum based in the former Portuguese colony (and now India's smallest state) of Goa. It has a large collection—over 4000 artefacts—focusing on Goa's traditional agrarian technology and lifestyle. The museum is based in the coastal Goan village of Benaulim. It was opened to the public in 2009, run by the artist-curator-restorer Victor Hugo Gomes. Gomes, a lifelong collector of objects, states about his journey working on the museum: “It is not easy; I am self-funded. I am not even registered as an NGO or non-profit. I run these museums not as spaces where one comes to see the dead, reads labels, and moves on but as collections of pieces that have an extensive story to tell and are living odes to our material heritage and culture". TimeOut Mumbai has described the museum as "[o]ne of Goa's most charming attractions" and added that "this little rural complex houses thousands of traditional implements, vessels and tools that evolved over centuries in the agrarian heartland of Goa in the service of farming and other traditional trades".

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.