Departmental Museum: Cultural Interpretation Centre
The museum of the Department of Cultural Studies, Tezpur University, was started since the time of the department's inception in 1996, under the leadership of Padmashree Birendranath Datta, the founder Professor and Advisor of the then Department of Traditional Culture and Art Forms - which was later rechristened as the Department of Cultural Studies. The museum was inaugurated on 31 August 1998, by Dr Rabin Dev Choudhury, a noted art historian and museologist of the country. Started with a mission of collection, documentation and study of ethnographic cultural heritage of North-East India, the present gallery of the museum, named as the Cultural Interpretation Centre, was renovated under the supervision of renowned museologist Professor A. K. Das, with financial support received under the UGC’s scheme of Centre with Potential for Excellence in Particular Areas, CPEPA, in 2017. In addition to housing and display of representative products from the various traditional crafts of the region, the new gallery also attempts to display aspects of select vernacular architectures of the state of Assam.
	The objects of the present collection can be broadly divided as: Domestic articles (Fishing implements, Agricultural implements, Utensils, Weaving implements) Textiles and beauty aids Crafts (Pith, Bamboo and Cane, Terracotta, Bell-metal and Brass-metal) Masks Musical instruments Manuscripts Miscellaneous The collection of this museum has been built up mostly from the donations of, and collections by, the students, researchers, faculty and staff of the department. Sporadic donations have also been received from enthusiastic families of the neighboring places. Objects also came from field expeditions of the department and the periodic purchase-drives from time to time.
At present, the museum has a small storage section and a basic conservation laboratory set-up. The museum has flexible guided tour facility for the visitors and groups, which can be offered as per the requirement of the audience need. Apart from regular activities, the museum organizes periodic awareness campaign on heritage related issues for students and general public. The museum, from time to time, has been working in collaboration with relevant institutions like the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Indira Gandhi Rastriya Manav Sangrahalaya (IGRMS) of Bhopal, National Museum Institute (NMI) of New Delhi, Indira Gandhi National Cente for the Arts (IGNCA) of New Delhi, Tezpur District Mahila Samiti (TDMS) of Tezpur, National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) of New Delhi, Asia Pacific Heritage Education Network for Intangible Cultural Heritage of South Korea and other educational institutes of the region.