Mossel Bay’s Dias Museum Celebrates International Museum Day

Mossel Bay’s largest tourism icon – the Dias Museum Complex – will celebrate International Museum Day this Friday, the 27th of May.

“The International Council of Museums established international museum day on the 18th May to encourage public awareness of the role of museums in the development of societies,” said the Dias Museum’s manager, Mbulelo Mrubata.

He said that, although this date has been observed around the world since 1977, South Africa chose to celebrate Museums Day this year on the 27th of May because our local government elections were held on the 18th.

“The theme for this year’s international museum day is ‘Museums and Memory,’ and the Dias Museum certainly does store memories and tell stories,” said Mr. Mrubata. “It is for this reason that we will be allowing free entry to all visitors on the 27th of May.”

The programme for the day will include the opening of a Shweshwe Exhibition, and demonstrations by the Mossel Bay Police Station’s Dog Unit, the Sea Boarder Unit, and the local Fire Department. The museum will also host a bazaar during which local entrepreneurs will be able to sell food and hand made arts and craft products, with the museum providing operating space free of charge.

International Museum Day will also see the culmination of a Museum Ambassadors’ Education Programme in which prefects from five local primary schools will have taken part.

“The purpose of the this programme, which will be presented by our education officers, Barry Jooste and Nora Hermanus, is for the prefects to get to know prefects from neighbouring schools and so spread the word of what is going on at their local museum,” said Mr. Mrubata.

The programme kicked off on Tuesday with All Saints, Garden Route and Park Primary Schools attending, while Curro, T.M. Ndanda, Isalathiso, Imekhaya and St Blaize R.K. Primary schools will take part on Friday.

The highlight of the day will be the opening of the museum’s Shweshwe exhibition.

“Shweshwe is the term for a kind of fabric and style of dress that dates back to the German missionaries, and all Museums in the Western Cape were asked to dress a wire doll in Shweshwe in 2009 – so really, this exhibition is an extension of that project, as well as being about the way people perceive this colorful part of our heritage,” said Mr. Mrubata.

International Museum Day celebrations will kick off at the Dias Museum Complex at 10h00 on Friday the 27th of May, when programme director Barry Jooste will welcome participants. This will be followed by:       
 
The opening of the Shweshwe exhibition by Mr. Mrubata at 10:05;

A presentation on self defence by SA Police Services warrant officers Prins and Koekemoer at 10:25;

A presentation on the activities and duties of the Sea Border Police by warrant officer Cloete at 10:50;

A demonstration of how the local dog unit involves itself in drug searches at 11:10;

A demonstration of the activities of the Bomb Squad at 11:40; and

A word of thanksgiving by the chairperson of the Dias Museum’s Management committee, Mr. Harold Muller, at 12:00.

Mossel Bay Tourism’s Marcia Holm said that the Dias Museum is one of the most important tourism icons in the Garden Route.

“Time and again at international shows and workshops, we receive enquiries from local and international tour operators about the Dias’ Museum’s Post Office Tree and its Maritime Museum’s ever popular caravel (the replica of the ship in which Bartolomeu Dias sailed into Mossel Bay in 1488),” she said.

She pointed out that, besides the Bartolomeu Dias Museum Complex, Mossel Bay is also home to the Hartenbos Museum of the Great Trek, and the Great Brak River Museum of local history – and that all three are highlighted in Mossel Bay Tourism’s recently published guide to Mossel Bay’s Museums.

“We hope that the people of Mossel Bay will support their museums on International Museums Day,” she said.
       
Copies of Mossel Bay’s guide to local museums are available from the museums themselves, and from Mossel Bay Tourism (on the corner of Church and Market Streets). For more information about the Dias Museum Complex, please visit http://www.diasmuseum.co.za/

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