Though I wanted to write Just after the end of Moolbodh, an exhibition of Madhubani paintings to make people especially Maithils, aware about their history and culture but because of my busy schedule I could not be able to write it and tonight I will try two blog post: one is related to my exhibition and the second one is related to Chandradhari Museum of Darbhanga. Though I started the exhibition thinking Maithils as a visitor in mind I’ll write tonight what we did that didn’t work so it can be helpful for those who want to exhibit on their own and will be a first-timer. As our budget was very low, we started advertising a week before the exhibition. What I did I will write in points. We decided to exhibit paintings at Arpana Art Gallery, Green Park.
- Created banners and stick it to the notice board of various organisations such as IGCNA, Lalit Kala Academy, India Habitat Centre, India International Centre and few more places related to art and culture.
- Run campaigns on Facebook three days before the exhibition.
- Promoted Event through various groups on Facebook related to Mithila and art and culture.
- Sent mails to around 50 people who were working as a volunteer guide at national Museum, Delhi.
- Sent the link of Event to 20 friends on Whatsapp requesting them to come to the inauguration of the exhibition.
- Sent messages to 100 people on Facebook asking them to come to the Inauguration.
- Sent messages to the media person who earlier promised to come to the inauguration.
- Sent Inauguration mail to the owners of various art gallery of Delhi.
- Kept the inauguration time in the evening
The owner of Arpana Art Gallery is very cooperative and she helped us throughout our exhibition: from day first to the end of our exhibition.
So after doing all such preparations not a single person from Mithila came to the exhibition. I am thankful to all those who came on the day of the exhibition, some came irrespective of their fast and their other responsibilities. In subsequent days we got some footfalls but not a single person was Maithil except the chief guest on the day of inauguration.
So where the fault was :-
- I didn’t send a reminder on the day of inauguration to all the people and only sent to as many people as I could through WhatsApp.
- I didn’t collect contact numbers of all the person I knew to send a reminder message to them.
- Expected the footfall according to the data received from Facebook and the emails that I sent taking 10% possibility of outcomes of the invited persons.
So from all these experiences, you can make out your first exhibition better and with great footfall. After all, it was our first exhibition and a great learning experience for us.
You can check the paintings displayed during exhibition here:
https://mithilanchalgroup.com/index.php/product-tag/stories/
