Selim Khandakar, 71, has at all times dreamt of making a museum in his village for the 12,000-plus objects he has collected over 50 years. A small portion of that assortment has now reached one of the greatest museums in the world — the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London — due to his artist niece, Ohida Khandakar.
Ohida, 31, has turned her uncle’s lifelong obsession into an set up and movie — Dream Your Museum — which won the V&A’s prestigious Jameel Prize for modern artwork and design impressed by Islamic traditions. The work is not only a tribute to what appears to be her uncle’s calling; it additionally challenges colonial museum buildings and asks whether or not bizarre, private objects deserve a place in museums. Can museums be versatile and inclusive areas, showcasing the narratives of minority communities and customs? Are non-public collections the unique privilege of the wealthy?
The set up and movie, ‘Dream Your Museum’, at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London.
Selim labored as a physician’s compounder in Kolkata and began accumulating random objects from the yr 1970. A stamp exhibition piqued his curiosity first, prompting him to start out accumulating them. He additionally got here throughout an exhibition of classic objects from Mallik Bari, one of Kolkata’s heritage properties. “It was a record of what objects were used in the ancient times and how lives were led,” Selim tells me over a Zoom name from his house in Kelepara, a village close to Hooghly, West Bengal. “It inspired me to start collecting whatever felt like a record of the common person’s life and times. From bus tickets to stamps to refills of pens, I wouldn’t throw anything away.”
An assortment of uncommon and mundane gadgets makes up Selim’s assortment. Old clocks, inscribed ceramics, classic data and music gamers, letters relationship again to Partition, fragrance bottles, crystal rocks, hand followers, stamps, handbills, ink pots, cameras, prepare tickets, receipts, even matriculation reply sheets from the 70s!

Selim Khandakar surrounded by the objects he has collected over the years.
| Photo Credit:
Anand Kumar Ekboty
Gramophones to child garments
Much of Selim’s assortment is housed in tin trunks and scattered throughout his house in Kelepara. It generally turns into a ‘travelling museum’ for folks in the village to discover and work together with the objects as Selim takes them round. There is curiosity, awe, some ridicule, some laughter, and from those that perceive historical past and report conserving, even encouragement.
Ohida’s movie captures Selim strolling by way of village fields together with his trunk, stopping by the river to rinse some crystal stones, and holding them as much as the solar. “Where did you find these, nanu?” asks Maria, his grand-niece, who seems in the movie. “In the graveyard,” Selim replies.

Selim Khandakar strolling by way of village fields together with his trunk.
| Photo Credit:
Anand Kumar Ekboty
Ohida, who studied artwork at the Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata, and Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, says it’s generally onerous to know what retains her uncle going. Is it hoarding, as his exasperated household has usually believed? She and Selim don’t suppose so. Instead, he thinks his assortment, very similar to Dream Your Museum, is about storytelling. “Collecting is my way of showing people from my village a glimpse of things from around the world,” Selim notes. “Like rare coins dating back to the Mughal period or vintage perfume bottles from around the world. Often people here do not get a chance to go to cities to see such things. That’s what has always kept me going.”

Selim Khandakar’s home that was destroyed after a cyclone..
| Photo Credit:
Anand Kumar Ekboty
Once displayed in his modest mud home, now destroyed after a cyclone, Selim’s possessions got here near being discarded by his household till Ohida determined to doc it digitally. She reacquainted herself with each her uncle and his assortment when caught at house throughout the pandemic. To her artist’s eye, it’s a compelling one, given its vary — from gramophones to child garments from the 80s. “It even has a bunch of fingernails [Selim’s own] in a box. It reminds me of Marcel Duchamp’s Dadaist Fountain exhibit [1917], where he displayed an upside-down urinal. Such objects challenge conventional notions of what belongs in a museum. These items, including a broken plate passed down through generations, show the power of storytelling through objects.”
Selim laughs when requested about the fingernails. “I had once visited an exhibition where I saw art made with fingernails and thought I would do the same with mine. It made me curious, so I kept them.”
What makes a museum?
Curiosity has been the driving drive behind Selim’s obsession and that is what Ohida celebrates in her work. Maria accompanies Selim all through the movie, asking him curious questions on the objects in his assortment, an try and peek into his thoughts. Ohida began filming Dream Your Museum as an entry for the 2022 Berlin Biennale, the place it was acquired properly, ultimately touchdown her the V&A award.
Filmmaker Ohida Khandakar
Growing up in Kelepara, Ohida hadn’t stepped inside a museum till she got here to check artwork in Kolkata. “I had achieved my dream of studying art and moving beyond a village where many women still had no voice and were married off early. It made me wonder — was there a limit to our dreams? Was there a limit to the dreams of my uncle, a rural, aged Muslim man?”
With the funds from the award, Ohida is now hoping to create a museum for her uncle’s assortment and a cultural house in the village. “We need accessible museums that work as alternative spaces for the narratives of rural minority communities; as safe spaces for women without opportunities; to engage those who might not typically visit traditional museums due to a lack of knowledge, distance or financial constraints.”
In Dream Your Museum, her digital camera gently movies Selim amongst his collections in his crumbling ancestral house. He expresses frustration at having no everlasting place even after 50 years to showcase his prized assortment. “I’ll now make a museum on the moon,” he declares.
The author is a freelance journalist and the co-author of ‘Rethink Ageing’ (2022).
Published – April 18, 2025 10:14 am IST