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The museum invites to document the history of COVID-19 together (Vilnius, Lithuania)
Life because of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot around the world. This period will surely go down in history. Therefore, the National Museum of Lithuania invited people to contribute to the reflection of this period in history and to share items that may become museum exhibits in the future. That could be anything: diaries with the described experiences and reflections of pandemic time, things that people do not imagine everyday life during quarantine, e.g., books, drawings, games diversifying limited leisure time, even original masks, etc. Tangible material was especially valuable to the museum but virtual material such as digital photos, videos were also welcome. Background The National Museum…
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Discover Jewish heritage with(out) leaving home (Kaunas, Lithuania)
Cinema screenings on the runway at Vilnius Airport – project “Aerocinema – the journey begins” (Vilnius, Lithuania)
Photography exhibition inspired by the COVID-19 hotline in Lithuania No. 1808 (Vilnius, Lithuania)
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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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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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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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Georgy Litichevsky, Hypothetical Dances (Thessaloniki, Greece)
Georgy Litichevsky’s Hypothetical Dances is a notebook of autonomous educational action for parents and children. The notebooks are aimed at families and offer online a variety of activities for different ages of children and young people, while everyone can use them at will depending on their interests. The notebooks were organized based on material from the permanent collections and exhibitions of the bodies that make up MOMus in recent years, were updated based on the new conditions and are now ready to use in the air! Background The Metropolitan Organisation of Museums of Visual Arts of Thessaloniki – MOMus was born from the merger of four Thessaloniki-based museums/art venues (the…
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From TV Show to Contemporary Art Gallery: Through the People’s Lens (Valletta, Malta)
Fondazzjoni Kreattività is an institution born with the task of managing the premises of the St James Cavalier fort, in Valletta (Malta), after this was allocated as a space for the Malta’s National Centre for Creativity. Therefore, the link between the activities carried out from the organisation and its own premises is really strong. When the global pandemic hit, these boundaries had to be broken and overcome, due to the forced closure. The exhibition Through the People’s Lens: A Quarantine Diary is an example of how Spazju Kreattiv (the name of the programme managed and curated by Fondazzjoni Kreattività) reacted to this new reality and how the institution reacted to…
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Forma Mentis: A Windmill of Art and Community (Birkirkara, Malta)
Following more than one year of pandemic, through different forms of restrictions to private and public art spaces, plans of cultural centers still need to adapt. Rather than focussing on virtually re-creating the exhibition’s experience, the Gabriel Caruana Foundation, with the Forma Mentis initiative, tackles the role of Art Therapy in relieving what’s been named “pandemic fatigue” or any other mental issues arising in connection to the pandemic. Initially designed for persons at higher risk of marginalisation and exclusion, the initiative broadened its scope to the whole community. Background The Mill – Art, Culture and Crafts Centre is located in Birkirkara, in Malta, at one of the busiest crossroads of…
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Venice and American Studio Glass Exhibition (Venezia, Italy)
“Venezia e lo Studio Glass Americano”is the first exhibition focused on the influence that aesthetics and traditional Venetian glassmaking techniques have had on American Studio Glass from the 1960s to the present. In 2020 the programme included real exhibitions with augmented and virtual reality, guided tours in presence and online, virtual events. Background LE STANZE DEL VETRO is a pluriennial, both a cultural project and an exhibition space on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore (Venice, Italy). It is dedicated to the study and the exhibition of modern and contemporary forms of glass art. The initiative is realized by Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti and…
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Leonardo Da Vinci 3D. Immersive and Interactive Experience (Milan, Italy)
Leonardo Da Vinci 3D is a multisensory exhibition dedicated to life and secrets of the Renaissance genius. The futuristic spirit of Leonardo was brought to life by a high-tech multi-projection system that offered an educational and entertaining experience to the participants: images and music moving along ceilings, walls and columns, holograms, virtual and augmented reality. Background The “Leonardo Da Vinci 3D Exhibition” was firstly organised in 2019, before Covid-pandemic, when the City of Milan decided to celebrate the fifth centenary of Leonardo Da Vinci’s death. The exhibition was organised by a private company Medartec Distribution and by the City of Milan, in collaboration with Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (National Research…
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Tuscan Museums for Alzheimer Patients (Toscana, Italy)
Tuscan Museum System for Alzheimer’s (MTA) develops and implements programs dedicated to people living with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. During the pandemic, in collaboration with the museums, they organised interactive activities for people with dementia and their caregivers. The project aimed to raise awareness on issues related to Alzheimer’s and dementia. Their activities helped to make culture accessible to people with Alzheimer’s disease in challenging times of Covid. Background For almost ten years, Tuscan museums have been developing and implementing programs dedicated to people living with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. In order to coordinate and enhance their action more efficiently, in 2020 they formed a centralised…
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Culture at Home (Italy; nationwide)
An online project for promotion of cultural heritage in the digital field in order to respond to the emergency that Italian cultural sites were experiencing due to COVID-19. The Culture at Home platform, created in March 2020, has made it possible to share ideas, information and experiences about cultural heritage sites of Italy, when it was forbidden to visit them during the lockdown. Culture at Home platform offered four sections – Culture Workshop, Edu Culture, Culture AudioGuides and Culture Stories – and different contents online in order to educate, entertain and accompany Italians during the lockdown. Background The platform was created by Coop Culture, the largest Cooperative Society operating in…
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Art and Science Virtual Exhibition “Viral Passion” (Napoli, Italy)
The virtual exhibition “Viral Passion” represents a journey into the world of viruses, in order to raise awareness about the main viruses in human history and to encourage visitors to choose reliable resources of information. Background The exhibition “Viral Passion” is realised by the scientific and creative staff of Città della Scienza (The City of Science). It is an innovative complex consisting of a science center, a business innovation center, a training center, a fab laboratory, and a conference center. Since 1996 Fondazione IDIS has been managing Città della Scienza in Naples, in the former industrial area of Bagnoli. The IDIS Foundation has been operating in Italy since 1987 and…
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Activity E-Book – Creative at home, Nitra Gallery (Athens, Greece)
At the beginning of the lockdown, the cultural activity seemed to be dormant. The art, however, must be creative. The Nitra Gallery, following that “rule”, invited its collaborating artists to contribute to creating activities for kids who stayed at home. The ultimate goal was to collect all the activities in an online book, so kids not only stay imaginative but also familiarize themselves with contemporary artists, learn techniques and create their own works with the help of their parents. Background Nitra Gallery is the continuation of Atrion (founded in 1994). When Atrion turned to Nitra in 2013, under the initiative of Aliki Tsirliagkou, it moved to a new location at…
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Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation – Digital Games for Adults (Athens, Greece)
The Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation implemented an online activity to enhance creativity and self-confidence, transform introversion into expression, and encourage the use of digital tools from the elderly. Background The museum was designed from the onset to house the Collection of the Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation. The collection focuses on modern and contemporary art by Greek and foreign artists, including rare works by masters of the European avant-garde such as Cézanne, van Gogh, Gauguin, Monet, Degas, Rodin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, Picasso, Braque, Léger, Miró, Giacometti, Balthus, as well as works by distinguished modern Greek painters including Parthenis, Bouzianis, Vassiliou, Hadjikyriakos-Ghika, Tsarouchis, Moralis, Tetsis and others. The building is a…
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Museum brought art to people’s homes (Vilnius, Lithuania)
When cultural life moved to a virtual space Lithuanian National Museum of Art together with the information partner Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LNRT) decided “to bring art to people’s home” and implemented the project “30 Artworks, 30 Creators, 30 Weeks”. In this project 30 renowned Lithuanian artists (painters, writers, musicians, architects, designers, and others) were invited to choose the artwork in any exposition of Lithuanian National Museum of Art department and in the video story tell the audience why that artwork is important and special to them. These videos were placed on the websites of the Museum and LNRT and their social networks, also shown in the LNRT morning…
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La Cultura non si ferma (“Culture never stops”; Nationwide, Italy)
“Culture never stops!” is a page of the Cultural Heritage Ministry website, which brings together virtual initiatives organized by State-owned cultural sites and the entertainment, music and audiovisual organisations during the Covid-19 emergency. Background The Ministry of Culture (Italian: Ministero della Cultura – MiC, previously Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism) is the ministry of the Government of Italy in charge of national museums and the historical monuments. MiC’s headquarters are located in the historic Collegio Romano Palace (in central Rome) and the current Minister of Culture is Dario Franceschini. It was set up in 1974 as the Ministry for Cultural Assets and Environments. The Ministry is made…
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COVID-19 Vaccination Hub at the Museum (Lecce, Italy)
In Italy, all museums were closed due to coronavirus restrictions. The Museum Castromediano of Lecce, Puglia’s oldest museum, whose large archaeological collection dates back to the Palaeolithic and Neolithic ages, has re-opened its doors during the lockdown in March 2021 as a COVID-19 vaccination hub. Thousands of people can get their vaccine and look at specially-selected exhibitions at the site for free. Background The Museum “Sigismondo Castromediano” is the oldest public museum in Apulia. Founded in 1868 by Sigismondo Castromediano, a 19th-century Lecce patriot and archaeologist, it traces the history of Salento from prehistory to the Messapian civilisation and 20th-century art. Target group (usually): local people, tourists. The Museum has…
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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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School Life and Education Museum – How to adapt to the COVID-19 reality (Athens, Greece)
With the outbreak of the pandemic, Museums and Cultural Organizations were amongst those who suffered the most severe consequences. The School Life and Education Museum reorganized its operation and redesigned its educational programs and activities so that they could be utilized and implemented online or in open spaces. Background The School Life and Education Museum operates under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Education and is a member of the Network of Museums and Cultural Institutions of Athens. The collections of the Museum include objects from school life (one of the biggest collections of schoolbooks, costumes, archives, photographs) and tokens of intangible cultural heritage (audio documents, testimonies, interviews on…
