Netherlands
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Comforting the community – Art as solace during the lockdown (Schiedam, the Netherlands)
As the lockdown started in The Netherlands, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam wanted to offer comfort to the inhabitants of the city Schiedam. By commissioning local artists to make their interpretation of comfort into a work of art and making their work into posters and postcards they spread the message of consolation throughout the city. Advertisement space was bought or donated and posters were offered to shops and other businesses to display. Volunteers delivered posters to the inhabitants who wanted them, and soon the city was full of expressions of solace from Schiedam, to Schiedam. Background Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (SMS) was founded in 1899 and is a museum for modern art, history,…
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Helping children with Surprise reading service (Gouda, the Netherlands)
When the Public Library in Gouda was closed during the lockdown, they wanted to keep children reading so they wouldn’t fall behind with school. Therefore, the library called the Surprise reading service to life. It set an example of an organization where the employees were knowledgeable, involved, moved quickly, and came up with a very personalized solution. Together with their network they made sure the service was online and advertised in no time. In the end 600 bright orange bags with 4000 personalized books were being prepared for the kids of Gouda. The library will expand the surprise reading service to adults if they need to close down again. Background…
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Being there – virtually: Robots in the Zeeuws museum (Middelburg, the Netherlands)
In order to enhance access to the museum for audiences with physical impairments – and more general for access in times of restrictions, the Zeeuws Museum experimented with a distantly operated robot tour guide. Apart from technical and digital issues that could be dealt with by innovation of the robot and its control, participants were happy with this form of contact. They did remark on the pleasure of always having a real person available in this way of visiting the museum. The experiment was also a positive experience for the museum itself as it provided for continuity during the lockdown phases of the pandemic. Background The Zeeuws Museum in Middelburg…
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Let’s get digital! Digital Transformation Conference (Den Haag, the Netherlands)
When all cultural institutions in The Netherlands had to close their doors to the public, there seemed to be only one solution: going digital. While some bigger museums, theaters and concert halls already had an extensive online presence or the money to outsource their creation, a big part of the cultural sector was suddenly faced with the preexisting but now urging challenge to translate their vision from tangible to digital. This increase in demand for education, inspiration and tools on the topic led even more cultural institutions to DEN, the Dutch knowledge institute on culture & digital transformation. Background DEN (Dutch knowledge institute on culture & digital transformation) is a…
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Culture for the elderly – Beyond Crossword Puzzles Vitamines voor de geest (Eindhoven, the Netherlands)
To help fight loneliness and negative consequences on mental health, Van Abbemuseum worked together with Vitalis (an organisation that provides housing and care for elderly people) and De Nieuwe Oost – Wintertuin (a literary production agency) to create a cultural ‘To Do-Book’. Van Abbemuseum provided images of artworks and corresponding assignments, as well as the opportunity to connect with staff and volunteers from the museum to talk about art via phone and/or letters. Even though the successes of these contributions varied widely, the museum looks back at the project fondly. Background The Van Abbemuseum is a municipal art museum based on the collection of the successful cigar manufacturer Henri van…
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Walking Tours In Dordrecht – From an artist’s perspective (Dordrecht, the Netherlands)
Walking has been a popular activity during the pandemic. The walking tours of Dordrechts Museum are unique because they show Dordrecht through the perspectives of a Dutch landscape artist. The tours were especially geared towards landscape artists who worked in the surroundings or had a connection with the city such as Albert Cuyp. Dordrechts museum continues to explore the outside as an extra museum space and more outside activities have followed. Background Dordrechts museum is not only one museum, but encompasses five cultural institutions combined into one organization called Dordrechts Museum, which has the same name as the biggest of the five cultural institutions. The other four institutions are: Huis…
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Unlock(down) the Advent Calendar (Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
The Kleine Komedie created the Adventskalender, every day in December, people could open up an advent ‘window’ at the theatre’s website and could watch regular artists of the theater perform online acts. These varied from cabaret, singing, cooking and storytelling. All artists decided to participate, many cabaret artist in the Netherlands were not eligible for the government support packages and thus were drastically impacted. Therefore the most important impact was economic as it provided the in-house artists with an income as every performance was paid for. And, with 1.7 million views worldwide, it also showed that there was a very enthusiastic audience. Background De Kleine Komedie was built in 1786…
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Creating art at home (Leiden, the Netherlands)
Museum De Lakenhal’s developed assignments to develop your creativity in your own environment in its “thuisatelier’. This allowed the museum to continue to inspire visitors and contribute to its goal of personal development online. This case is appealing because of its involvement of real artists who think out the assignments, its attractive design, and its real fun, and easy to carry out creative assignments. It was mainly very attractive for parents with no special artistic material at their disposal during the lock-down. It could be learned that one does not always need expensive artistic material to get creative, making the threshold for starting on a creative project at home much…
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Rijksmuseum from Home / #RijksmuseumFromHome (Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
As an alternative for visiting the museum during the pandemic, employees of the Dutch Rijksmuseum for art and Dutch history created a series of short videos at home, highlighting a cherished object from the museum collection through a personal story. In a total of 24 videos (January 2022) in the ‘Rijksmuseum from Home’ series, museum specialists shared their personal fascinations for one object, while incidentally also referring to the pandemic and its impact on society. The movies were posted on the website of the museum, as well as social media, such as YouTube and Instagram. Background The Rijksmuseum is a well-known Dutch national museum for art and Dutch history. It…
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Fasten your seatbelts, next stop: Boijmans Ahoy drive-thru (Rotterdam, the Netherlands)
Museum Boijmans organized a drive-thru exhibition during the Covid-19 pandemic. A very spontaneous idea with a very short preparation time. Nevertheless, it became a success and was completely sold out. The museum took a big risk to start this project without any fundings or partnerships, everything worked out and the drive-thru received great publicity from all over the world. In the end the museum reached a new audience, strengthened their partnerships and found a way of making their collection visible during the lockdown. Background Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is one of the oldest art museums of The Netherlands. The museum offers a broad variety of artworks from medieval paintings to…
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Oerol takes the island Terschelling to its imagination (West-Terschelling, Netherlands)
Living in a world during a pandemic leaves people with all kinds of challenges. This also applies for the Oerol Festival, a yearly cultural festival that takes place on Terschelling. The Oerol festival is a true location based performance, in which location theatre, nature and landscape are inseparable from Oerol. During the pandemic they turned tables. Instead of being on Terschelling, they created an online edition, called ‘’The Imaginary Island’’. They succeeded in giving people the island feeling at home and even reached lots a new and larger audience (Oerol n.d.). Background Every year, for ten days long, during the Oerol festival, the whole island of Terschelling is transformed into…
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National Opera & Ballet: Keep on singing and dancing! (Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
The Dutch National Opera & Ballet shared its most precious treasures, old and new, with audiences around the world through an online platform they created. The organization still wanted people to enjoy opera and ballet at all costs, so the platform was realized in no time. Fragments, live streams, podcasts, games and much more were part of it. It took some hard work and a lot of creativity, but the organization has put in place an outstanding initiative. They reached people they could not reach before and after them more institutions followed with similar initiatives (Nationale Opera & Ballet n.d.). Background Dutch National Opera & Ballet is a relatively young…
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Singer TV: Art and the museum, up close and personal (Laren, the Netherlands)
In reaction to the lockdown, museum and theatre Singer Laren started to produce their own videos on pieces from their museum collection, giving in depth information on the history and composition of the piece and linking it to contemporary circumstances. With this initiative, the museum has been able to remain in contact with their audience and possibly reaching a new one. This not only impacted the public, but also the staff members and volunteers by offering messages of support and keeping everyone in the loop. Background Singer Laren is a museum and a theatre in one. It grew from the initiative of an American couple, Anna and William Singer, who…
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Visiting landscapes inside and out (Nijmegen, Netherlands)
During the start of COVID-19, the Valkhof museum has not been idle. During the first two months of the pandemic, Valkhof committed itself to continue to stimulate the visitors as a museum. They did this by creating the Binnenste Buitenland exhibition. With the help of a hidden collection of the museum, one is taken back in time to the landscapes and thus the source of inspiration for 19th-century artists. The creation of the exhibition did not go smoothly, nevertheless, the museum has achieved its greatest goal; to keep visitors active and connect them with the museum and Nijmegen Background The Valkhof Museum is located nearby the Valkhof Park in the…
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Corona in the city. A crowd-sourced on- and offline exhibition (Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
The digital exhibition Corona in the city is about the impact of Corona on the city and its inhabitants and documenting this for the future real time. After one year more than 3000 photo’s, video’s, story’s, drawings, magazines, columns, letters, poems, interviews and songs have been collected and are shared on the exhibition website. The digital exhibition has been visited by more than 150.000 visitors in one year (15 may 2020 – 15 may 2021). For the corona in the city exhibition, not only the general public but also many organizations joined in, of which local strongly embedded media partners were most prominent. And this lead to greater exposure and…
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View the Mauritshuis at Home. Another way to experience art – listen to paintings at home (Den Haag, Netherlands)
The Mauritshuis had a goal in mind: to attract a younger audience to the museum and bring them in contact with Dutch heritage. To make this possible they created the project ‘View the Mauritshuis with your ears’: an initiative that asks artists to draw inspiration from an artwork from the collection of the museum and to make a song about it. The format that was first created and used was remodeled when the planned concert at the end wasn’t an option anymore due to the measures to counter the Corona virus. The changing of the format to fit these times made the project even better and it became a huge…
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Whatever’s possible – A growing museum against the odds (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
In order to combat the cultural exclusion the lockdown created, Museum Het Schipcame up with a highly intimate way of keeping their public close to them. After two years of hard work, the just-opened exhibition ‘Bruno Taut – Beyond Fantasy’ could only be visited for six days before the museum had to close its doors. Instead of moving their exhibition online they offered guided digital tours for one or two people at the time, keeping up with their tradition of dialogue while presenting what the museum had to offer. Though small, the museum proved to house creative and involved staff members who did everything they could with what they had,…
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Land Art Weekend 2020 (Flevopolder, the Netherlands)
The limitations of the corona pandemic urged Landscape Art Flevoland to develop a more individual form of the Land Art Weekend, a festival that annually highlights nine land artworks in the province of Flevoland, the Netherlands. In order to organize the Land Art Weekend in 2020, Land art Flevoland developed a series of ten educational podcasts and nine atmospheric playlists to enable individual visits to the artworks. As the Land Art Weekend was one of the few art productions accessible to audiences in the summer of 2020, it received a generous amount of coverage in the local and national media. The program was broadcasted in the Land Art Weekend during…
