Armenia’s Museum Expand Digital Platforms Amidst Coronavirus Lockdown

By Mari Sahakyan

Beauty might not save the world from the coronavirus, but it can surely save it from boredom. When on March 16 Armenia’s government announced a state of emergency, museums were forced to close their doors. But in the coming weeks, the public will be able to access various collections digitally. 

One of the museums that’s opening up its collections online is the National Gallery of Armenia, which has already begun to publish different artworks on social media. As this year the gallery is celebrating its 100th anniversary, people can also get access to archaic photos of the gallery building and enjoy programs and films about different artists that were exhibited in the gallery throughout the years. 

The gallery also has a series of posts dedicated to women’s month. Everyday, it publishes portraits of women  in its collection, painted by different Armenian artists. In addition to that, there is also an online educational program, where the gallery posts artwork with a specific question, after which people are invited to initiate and participate in an online discussion. 

This month, many visitors were looking forward to the long-awaited exhibition of Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. Taking into consideration the current situation, the gallery promised to postpone it and not cancel. 

The Armenian Center for Contemporary and Experimented Art (ACCE) is also keeping its audience engaged by making the archive of the museum available to everyone online. ACCE has a rich archive that includes videos and photos from exhibitions that it held since 1992.  During the current quarantine, art enthusiasts can have access to these rare pieces of Armenian contemporary art. 

This movement of online museums is popular throughout the world. The Uffizi Gallery in Florence has started their “UffiziDecameron” movement that is named after Giovanni Boccaccio’s famous novel “Decameron,” where characters, while being self-isolated during the plague, find an escape from boredom by telling each other different stories. 

Today, when everyone is staying in their houses because of COVID-19, Uffizi Galleries is helping make isolation easier. Some online tours and online collections are also available in other famous museums, such as St. Petersburg’s Hermitage, Paris’s Louvre, the Vatican Museums of Rome, and the Metropolitan Museum of New York.