Mumbai: Church heritage gets a young face

Joynel Fernandes and Wilson Pinto at the Archdiocesan Heritage Museum. Pics/Sameer Markande

In your teens, only a few things matter. And, if heritage and the arts are among them, it's probably skill-sets worth honing. Back in 2014, when Joynel Fernandes, then all of 19, pursued a summer internship at the Archdiocesan Heritage Museum in Goregaon - the country's third museum on Christian religious art - its director, Fr Warner D'Souza, did exactly that.

Today, 25-year-old Fernandes, armed with a diploma in museology and conservation from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), is not just the assistant director of the museum, but also the author of two books, one of which was published earlier this month and where she critically explores classical Christian artworks that depict the Passion of Christ.

Fernandes is not alone. Giving her company is 20-year-old Wilson Pinto. Together, the duo has been holding fort at the museum, assisting in the preventive conservation of several Christian artefacts, including sculptures, vestments and rare manuscripts from the city and outside - some of which date back to the early 1500s - while also conducting guided tours for visitors.

Both Joynel Fernandes and Wilson Pinto's interest in the project grew after brief stints at the museum. Fernandes's first project with the museum was the exhibition organised in 2014 at Bandra commemorating the Golden Jubilee of the 38th International Eucharistic Congress (an international gathering of clergy and laity) held in 1964. "At the time, I was in my final year BA at St Xavier's College, Dhobi Talao," she recalls. "But the project seemed so fascinating, that I signed up for it. As part of our research, we read several books and studied various artefacts. That whole period spent in exploring the history that you don't otherwise encounter in stereotypical syllabus or in the mainstream narratives drew me in." She later joined the museum full time.

Pinto, a Commerce student, got involved after Fr D'Souza, who is also his parish priest at the Church of St Jude in Malad East, asked him to help him at the museum, two summers ago. The association has continued ever since with Pinto aspiring to study archaeology.

One of the major projects that Fernandes and Pinto were initially involved in, was around two years ago, when they, along with nine other college interns, took on the Herculean task of cataloguing, documenting and interleaving the museum's vast paper collection comprising photographs, letters, brochures, old editions of Catholic magazines, prayer books and Bibles, one of which was the first English edition.

After being trained under Fr Warner for a week, the team started with first cleaning the inner-corners of the books with a soft brush and then interleaving the pages with glassine (acid-free) paper. "If there were any signs of active infestation or damage, they were treated or restored accordingly by professionals," says Fernandes. Fr Warner also put them through the rigour of watching online tutorials by the Australian Museum, Smithsonian Institution and others, to understand how to store paper artefacts. Last year, they undertook a similar task for fabric, metal and wooden objects.

Apart from this, the two also manage the museum. "Preventive conservation involves measures to avoid and minimise the damage of artefacts through appropriate museum upkeep. We have to constantly keep a check on the temperature of the premises, especially during the monsoons as moisture easily attracts fungi. Also, on a daily basis, before we open [at 9 am], we investigate every artefact," says Fernandes. Then, there is a large volume of visitors they have to attend to. "We split the guided tours, between ourselves," says Pinto.

Starting young
Fr Warner D'Souza, who has played an instrumental role in engaging the youth at the museum, says, "The youth has the credentials and are able to speak, understand and comprehend far better than we give them credit. Also, if you really want to convince young people that art and culture is interesting, you need to have somebody out there, who speaks their language."

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