Global Nepali Museum (GNM) is a museum in the Cloud, this is the first database and a virtual museum of its kind in Nepal that features the objects, which are away and are housed in the museum’s around the world. This cloud based museum is an effort to bring all the objects under one domain to give an opportunity specially to the Nepali audience, students and researchers to see and study these objects. Global Nepali Museum operates under the umbrella of Nepal Archives and Museums, which is a not profit and not politial organization. It legally registered at the Company Registers Office and Social Welfare Council.
Roshan Mishra
Roshan Mishra is the founder of the Global Nepali Museum. He studied in Nepal, Japan and in the UK and holds a Master’s degree in Digital Art. In 2013, he came back to Nepal after studying and working in London for almost 14 years. It was only in 2014, when he started his career in the Museum sector. Currently, he is the director at the Taragaon Museum. He also manages the Nepal Architecture Archive (NAA), which is run by the Saraf Foundation for Himalayan Traditions and Culture; a patron organization of the Taragaon Museum. At the Taragaon Museum, he has been working with its permanent collection, launching of the Contemporary Art Gallery and creation of archive and a Library.
Roshan Mishra is an art curator and art promoter of Nepalese art , he is also the founder of Nepalian Art, and an initiator of Mishra Museum. Currently, he is a visiting faculty at the Kathmandu University for research, documentation and archiving programs. He studied Fine Arts in Nepal and in the UK, and holds a Master’s Degree in Digital Art.
After he joined the Taragaon Museum in 2014, that is when he started to learn more about the heritage, cultural sites, temples and stupas, and this is what it led him to think about the objects that were depicted inside the temples and also around the buildings and monuments. This was the moment when he started to look at the Nepali objects housed in the museums around the world. Roshan has visited many museums in Europe and have seen many Nepali objects . He says “Nepali objects are well taken care by the museums and institutions around the world since many years. Every year millions of people visit these museums and learn about Nepali objects; its journey and history. That’s when I felt, those objects have not been seen by the majority of Nepali people, as they are unaware of these culturally and historically important objects, hand crafted by our ancestors. Therefore to make it accessible and noticeable to the Nepali audience, students, researchers and whoever are interested to learn about our art and culture; I took an initiative to make an online platform where all the Nepal related objects scattered around the world can be recorded and documented.”
This museum is his personal effort of creating a virtual museum and a web-based database of the objects that are displayed and kept in different museums around the world. The idea of this web platform is to bring all the details of the objects under one domain and make it accessible to the Nepali students, researchers or whoever, who wants to learn more about these objects. This could also potentially provide an opportunity to share new findings with the other museums in the future.
Roshan is a second-generation artist in his family. His father Manuj Babu Mishra was a prominent artist, art historian and a writer of Nepal. Roshan is also carrying a dream and a mission to open a museum on his father’s name.
Apara Bhandari
Collection Manager
Global Nepali Museum & Mishra Museum
Apara Bhandari graduated from Brunel University, UK. She came from an Environmental Science and Education background.
Since 2017, Apara has been working and managing the artworks of Late Manuj Babu Mishra, who was an eminent artist of Nepal. Roshan and Apara both initiated the idea of Museum and have been working to convert Mishra’s house into a museum in the future. As the collection manager, she is maintaining the collection inventory of both Global Nepali Museum & Mishra Museum.