Explore humanity’s greatest inventions and discoveries in a new interactive online project by Google Arts & Culture, in collaboration with Parzor Foundation.
Wednesday, March 6th – Today, Google Arts & Culture launched Once Upon a Try – the largest online exhibition about inventions and discoveries ever curated. Collections, stories and knowledge from over 110 renowned institutions across 23 countries, including from Parzor Foundation, are brought together, highlighting millennia of major breakthroughs and the great minds behind them.
Everybody can now explore more than 400 interactive exhibitions that pay tribute to humanity’s greatest leaps in science and technology progress, and the visionaries that shaped our world, as well as tales of epic fails and happy accidents. Once Upon A Try also lets you dive into Street View to tour the sites of great discoveries, from deep underground inside CERN’s Large Hadron Collider to high in the sky onboard the International Space Station. Zoom into more than 200,000 artifacts in high definition, including the first recorded map of the Americas from 1508, and Albert Einstein’s letters, never before published online.
Parzor Foundation contributes the exhibition Breaking New Ground: Darashaw Nosherwan. The Story of Geologist Extraordinaire D.N. Wadia. The exhibition allows users a glimpse into the Indian Geologist’s life and his pioneering contribution to Indian and world geology. The exhibit includes images from the diaries he maintained on his field trips, his geological drawings and even a peek into his bookkeeping habits. Google Arts & Culture Technology will now allow this material including images from Professor Wadia’s personal rock collection, to be preserved for posterity.
Online visitors can discover
· A special interactive story about the geologist pioneer Prof. DN Wadia with rare material to interest scientists, artists and just about anyone looking to study a fascinating life.
· 60+ new archives and objects related to Prof. DN Wadia (courtesy Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, photography by Krish Bhalla.)
Dr Shernaz Cama, Director of Parzor Foundation said “our collaboration with the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology and the innovative technology provided by this Google platform has allowed the work of Prof. D. N. Wadia to be made available for the benefit of the global geological and scientific community the world over. We are thrilled to be able to contribute to this global project with our exhibition on India’s forgotten Father of Geology.”
Ms Kritika Mudgal, Curator of Parzor Foundation’s exhibition Breaking New Ground: Darashaw Nosherwan, expressed gratitude to the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology for sharing their resources. “ Access to Prof. Wadia’s meticulous notes, his rather artistic geological sketches and his awe-inspiring rock collection was a wonderful opportunity. I am glad that the Google Arts & Culture Platform will now allow more of us to know about institutions
such as the Wadia Institute in Dehradun, their remarkable collections and the significance of the pioneering work of those like Prof. Wadia to various fields of human endeavours across ages. ”
Mr Krish Bhalla, photographer for the exhibit, iterated the significance of digitizing artefacts through photography in an effort to preserve our heritage, as also of the contribution of the Google Arts & Culture Platform to the end of safeguarding artistic, cultural and scientific heritage in the modern world.
“We invite everyone to participate in the first phase of an online collection that celebrates innovation and science. Through inspiring, and at times surprising, stories from over 100 partners, you can explore the inventions and discoveries that have shaped our world. Once Upon a Try is all about that first attempt, the idea, the journey of fulfilling a dream, and we hope it’ll give people that extra boost to find their very own eureka moment,” said Amit Sood, director of Google Arts & Culture.
The Parzor Exhibition may be accessed through: https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/RQKSorHWtx43JQ
Explore Once Upon a Try on Google Arts & Culture (g.co/onceuponatry) or using our app on iOS or Android, and join the conversation with #onceuponatry.
About Google Arts & Culture
Google Arts & Culture puts the collections of more than 1,800 museums at your fingertips. It’s an immersive way to explore art, history and the wonders of the world, from Van Gogh’s bedroom paintings to the women’s rights movement and the Taj Mahal. The Google Arts & Culture app is free and available online for iOS and Android. Our team has been an innovation partner for cultural institutions since 2011. We develop technologies that help preserve and share culture and allow curators to create engaging exhibitions online and offline, inside museums. Read about our latest projects on the Google Keyword blog.