The words “No photography allowed” are often found in Indonesia museums even sometime there is this sentence “Brings camera will be charged”. What does exactly happen behind those prohibitions? A few articles have summoned this issue which are correlated with museum or gallery’s collections. According to Mr. Sektiadi, S.S, M.Hum, a faculty in Department of Archeology at the Gajah Mada University, in his private blog (http://sektiadi.staff.ugm.ac.id/2014/05/tidak-boleh-memotret-di-museum) stated some probabilities about why the museum manager did not allow visitors taking photograph of the displayed collections, those probabilities are:
- To protect the object from the damaging flash light of cameras.
- To secure other visitors from people who take photograph.
- Keeping the museum so it does not look like ordinary tourist attraction.
- To prevent the object from being stolen or duplicated.
- To protect the object’s copyright
- To protect the economic interest of the owner or the museum.
Krikilan cluster of Sangiran early man site is a museum that shows “Appreciating the history of civilization” themed collections such as: human fossils, fauna fossils, early man’s artefacts, and Sangiran setting from 2,5 million years ago. These collections are divided into three, they are: genuine (consists of fauna fossils and early man artefacts), replica (human fossils), and visual interpretation result (reconstruction of Homo erectus tipik and Homo floroensis). Conservation Office of Sangiran Early Man Site (BPSMP Sangiran) as the museum manager and responsible for the museum and its collections does not prohibit its visitors taking photograph of the museum’s collections.
Considering the statement from Mr. Sektiadi above, that there are preventive actions to protect the museum’s collections and other visitors from various threat coming from the visitors, protection of copyright, and to preserve the museum as an educating place, there are some other reasons that make BPSMP Sangiran allows the visitors taking photographs. The reasons are: the collections displayed in Sangiran are different than other museum that might consist of paintings or other things that vulnerable against light, the collections are not for economic purpose, and photographs can be a media to promote Sangiran into wider community. BPSMP Sangiran has done preventive actions such as: placing the collections in vitrine glass and installing retractable belt between visitors and collections without reducing the visitors’ comfort while exploring the museum. All the museums under the management of BPSMP Sangiran are not used to improve the economic condition of the management but to improve public welfare. (Dian Nisa Anna Rahmayani)
-translated by: Arif Budianto-
