The left symbol of IAMM actually is a Kufic writings for Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia in Arabic. Cool eh? Hehe
Dah lama gile x post pape kat dlm blog nih. So saje nk post a new post bout my practical training at Islamic Arts Museum, KL. Slalunya ak akan post pasal previous tempat keja ak in bullet points n bahasa pasar (read here and here) but since post ni pon ak just amik from report practical yg ak kena wat soo tuh yg dier dlm karangan SPM yg berjela2. Soo once again, nk bg warning awal2 dis post tersangatla pjg (klu dlm word 5 pages) n klu malas nk baca tuh anda dipersilakan utk tekan butang pangkah di hujung atas belah kanan browser anda. Terima Kasih. :)
INTRODUCTION
The
Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia is one of the prestigious Islamic art museums in
the world. The building is located in the heart of Kuala Lumpur with 30,000
square metres and houses with more than eight thousands artefacts including an
exceptional library of Islamic-art books. I have been given the opportunity to
do my practical training here from 18th June 2012 until 10th
August 2012. I worked from 9.15 AM till 6.00 PM (5.00 PM during Ramadhan or
fasting month) on weekdays during this period of internship.
INTERNSHIP POSITION AND JOB SCOPES DESCRIPTIONS
I
was assigned to work with the Department of Marketing and Events of the museum
during my practical training. This department handles all the events that were
held in the museum as well as visitors who came to the museum. There are no
specific tasks that were given to me during this course of internship.
Basically, I just help all the staffs in the department with their works. For
example, I was doing most of the clerical jobs during my first week of
internship. These clerical jobs are including filing and photostating of
documents, pamphlets and brochures of the museum.
Another
job scope for Marketing and Events department staffs is to guide any visits
from schools, universities and etc. I became an observer and help a little bit
during the staffs were guiding the visitors in the museum. Some of the groups that
I managed to join and help are students from Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin,
Korean ambassador and his delegations and delegations from Badan Amal dan
Kebajikan Tenaga Isteri-isteri (BAKTI) which is the society for the wives of cabinet
ministers and deputy ministers in Malaysia. The purpose and objective of this
task are to get acquainted with the artefacts in the museum. Therefore, I
started to learn gradually about the artefacts that are displayed in the museum
by observing these groups visits. I learnt that the museum has 12 galleries
which are architecture, Quran and manuscripts, India, China, Malay world,
jewellery, textiles, arms and armour, coins and seals, metalwork, ceramics and
living with wood galleries. The museum also has five domes and one unique
inverted dome with Quranic verses decoration. The biggest artefact in the
museum is the Ottoman Room in the architecture gallery.
In
addition, there were two special exhibitions that were conducted during my
course of internship at the museum and I managed to learn about these
exhibitions through the visits that previous mentioned. The first special
exhibition was the “Ann Dunham’s Legacy: A Collection of Indonesian Batiks”.
The exhibition showcased twenty batiks from the private collection of Ann
Dunham, President Barack Obama’s mother. The second special exhibition was the
“Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum: Architecture in Islamic Arts”. This
exhibition presented unique and rare artefacts that related to architecture in
Islamic arts. Among the most notable artefacts on exhibit are a miniature
entitled “16th century folio from the most famous series of paintings in Muslim
art, the celebrated Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp; architectural elements like
muqarnas and ornamented wood pieces from 15th century Spain; glazed turquoise
earthenware elements from late 14th century Central Asia; tiled arches from
15th century Egypt; ornamental doors from 9th century Iran and 16th century
Iznik tiles from Turkey. Both special exhibitions have taught me about the
history of Ann Dunham and her batiks’ collection as well as Aga Khan with its
selected artefacts from the Aga Khan Museum collection.
After
a while, I was given the task to conduct a tour guide for the primary school
students from Sekolah Rendah Agama (SRA) Bandar Baru Rinching, Semenyih. It was
a quite challenging experience because I have to handle kids with their
hyperactive behaviour and inquisitive nature. However, it was a fun experience
too as I was given the opportunity to educate these children about basic
history of Islam through the artefacts in the museum. I also felt like I was
teaching history to these students from what I have learnt in the classroom for
the past 4 years.
Moreover,
I was also fortunate to participate with an event that was organized by the
museum which was the “The Royal Visit by H.R.H Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn
to Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia” on 24th July 2012. H.R.H is the
royal princess from Thailand and daughter of the King Bhumibol Adulyadej who is
the current King of Thailand. I was instructed to distribute museum guides to
all guests that came together with the princess. Personally, I felt honoured to
meet the princess in real life and participated in this very important event of
the museum.
Assisting
museum assistants was another job that I did during the internship. The job
scope for museum assistant is mostly related with customer services. A museum
assistant has to greet every visitor who enter the entrance door of the museum
and collect payment for the entrance fees of the museum. The museum assistant
also needs to explain a few rules that visitors need to follow during their
visits in the museum. I also help them in recording the nationality of the
visitors in order for the museum to make a statistics for their visitors. Any
enquiries from the visitors need to be entertained by the museum assistants in
order to give good hospitality and services to the visitors.
OVERALL EXPERIENCES
Firstly,
I would like to thank the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia for allowing me to do my
internship at the museum. I gained a lot of experiences during my 10 weeks
course of internship. The internship gives me a unique working experience in a
museum which not a lot of people can acquire. Working in a museum also requires
a lot of patience, tolerance and endurance as people in here have to deal with
fragile artefacts and visitors who have different attitudes. The Islamic Arts
Museum Malaysia also taught me that there are many beautiful Islamic art
artefacts from the smallest thing such as ring, seal and coin to the biggest
thing like monuments all around the world. These artefacts are evidences that
demonstrate previous Islamic kingdoms and caliphates had a glorious achievement
in arts during their time. Furthermore, I began to appreciate the Islamic arts
and realized that I have taken things for granted when I am studying history in
the classroom. I always think the Western civilization is more advanced in
their arts and craftsmanship but I was wrong. The Islamic arts are equal with
the Western arts. Besides that, lots of Islamic artefacts and their designs are
far more beautiful and complex than the Western artefacts. There are also quite
few objects that were made by the Western people which were inspired by the
Islamic arts. This shows that the Islamic civilization has high quality in its
arts and culture. For this, I would like to thank the museum for gave me such
kind of awareness.
The
internship also helps me to improve my communication skills as I need to face
daily visitors who visit the museum. I have to greet and explain to them about
the rules when visiting museum. Besides that, I have to ensure that I addressed
my visitors properly according to their demographic so that they can understand
what I am trying to say during the museum tour. I also need to hear what they
want to say or comment about the museum and guide them to other places around
the Kuala Lumpur if they ask for directions. This training also made me realize
that there are many tourists from all over the world that come to Malaysia.
Regular visitors who come to the museum are including from Japan, South Korea,
China, United Kingdom, Australia, United States of America and Austria.
While
this internship has given me quite few experiences, there are certain things that
I want to highlight from what I have been through this internship. Firstly, I
was quite disappointed with the Human Resource Department when they decided to
not allow me to switch to Curatorial Affairs Department. Although I believe
that I have learnt many valuable things in the Marketing and Events Department,
but considering my area of specialization, i.e. history and civilization, Curatorial Affairs Department might be a
more suitable option for me. This department deals greatly with the Islamic art
artefacts and it was a quite waste that the museum did not fully utilized my
talent in history because most of the history of the artefacts in the museum I
have learnt them in the classroom. It is understood that the curators in the
Curatorial Affairs Department are busy and engaged with their current works and
future special exhibitions and this has been said as the main reason that I was
not allowed to enter this department. However, it is my opinion that I should
be exposed to this area of specialization even though in a short period so that
I can feel what it is like to work in a Curatorial Affairs Department since the
nature of the work in this department is closely related to my lectures and
coursework in the university. I was a bit disheartened when I found out that
there were no chances at all that I could join this department because the
museum has stated in its official website “each
intern will be placed in the department that is most appropriate for their line
of academic studies” and I believe that Curatorial Affairs Department is
most likely related with my degree programme compare to Marketing and Events
Department.
It
is suggested also that the museum could give allowances to the future interns.
The cost of working in Kuala Lumpur is quite high and the interns could use
some financial assistance from the museum in order to ease their financial
strains during the internship. I believe any amounts that would be given to the
future interns would be much appreciated by them.
In
addition, there are some errors that I found in the information panel for
certain artefacts in the museum. For example, there is historical information
that tells the visitor about the conquest of Constantinople by Sultan Mehmed II
which was happened in 1451 in the architecture gallery but the exact date was
1453. Another error was the description of the painting of Cave of Thur which
was the cave during the Prophet hid when he embarked his hijra’ to Madinah in
the Chinese gallery. But instead, the description informs that it was the Cave
of Hira’. I was informed by the curators that it takes time to change all this
error information but it is my viewpoint that the museum should not delayed the
correction of all these information as it will give wrong information to the
visitors of the museum continuously.
I
also want to further suggest that the museum should use the abbreviation of CE
which stands for Common Era instead of AD (Anno Domini which means “in the year
of the Lord (Jesus Christ)”) for all labels of the year of the artefacts. AD
abbreviation stands out as a particularly direct reference to Jesus as Lord and
this is contradict with the Islamic teachings because Muslims regard Jesus only
as a prophet. Besides, this is an Islamic Arts Museum so that any references
that sided with non-Islamic references should be avoided at all.
CONCLUSION
Once
again, I would like to thank the museum especially to the Marketing and Events
Department staff for guiding me during my practical training here at the
Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia. A special thanks to:
- Raihana Md Saad: Assistant Manager of Marketing and Events Department
- Mohd Romi Irwan: Senior Executive
- Siti Nor Hanani: Senior Executive
- Ahmad Azizan: Executive
- Zulhilmi: Museum Assistant
- Nur Anida: Museum Assistant
- Nor Liyana: Museum Assistant
I
pray for many successes for the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia in the future. It is hoped too that there will be a lot of
future students from Department of History and Civilization, IIUM that would do
their optional practical training in this museum.
p/s: Tulisan kale merah sebenarnya adalah kritikan direct halus ak terhadap IAMM. Well nk wat cmne dh dlm report guideline ader satu part soh tules general view of the session from student's perspective. But terbuat in details plk instead of general. Nk wat cmne ak kan emo skit. Hahahaha
