There has been a week on Twitter where
culture has become Trending Topic each day. Seven days and seven
hashtags have taken – or have wanted to take – the European
museums to all the community on this social network.
Lately it has been the week of museum on
Twitter which, under the hashtag #MuseumWeek,
represented a whole week to promote and publicize the work carried
out by the institutions that have participated.
That is not new; Twitter had already host
previous activities and cultural days like the #AskACurator
ongoing since 2010, o the
#MuseumSelfie days
on this past 21 and 22 January. But the difference this time has been
the will to implicate as much museums as possible, moving it from one
or two days to a complete week engaged to the museums. The pioneers
where museums from Great Britain, and at the end there were included
French, Italian and Spanish museums. In Catalonia, from where we
write this blog, we could find big institutions like the national
museum MNAC (Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya),
the Museu Picasso or the Fundació Miró, up to more local museums
like the Museu d'Art de Morera (Morera's Art Museum) or the Museu
d'Art Modern de Tarragona (Museum of Modern Art of Tarragona). All of
them have desired to give some space to the questions and opinions of
the Twitter users, as well as publicize the museums but also giving
voice to the intern works that we usually won't see when we visit
them, like the restoration team and the educational or maintenance
services.
The methodology of this initiative was to
propose activities and show something of the museum throughout
various hashtags: on Monday #DayInTheLife to show the daily routine
of a museum worker, from directors or curators to maintenance or
security team; moreover, must be thought most museums close their
doors on Monday and that is a good way to show what they do and how
they work even if the galleries remain closed, emphasizing the
internal tasks like management, curatorship, maintenance,
restoration, etc; on Tuesday we had #MuseumMastermind where Twitter
users were encouraged to answer questions about the collection,
history, building, etc., even with some prizes! Wednesday was time
for #MuseumMemories, where everyone could explain anecdotes and
memories about museums, thus creating a relaxed and friendly
environment with a good mood and the most original stories. The
fourth day was #BehindTheArt, where the museum has taken prominence,
talking about his artwork, museology, architecture, etc., making
clear the changes and remodelations that have evolved the institution
over time, including iconic or curious facts that have happened
inside those.
Friday was the #AskTheCurator day, a
hashtag that has already been long time in the network, whose
objective was for the users to ask questions to the museum workers
about internal or external issues around the exhibitions, the
favourite exhibitions for directors or curators, how difficult is to
restore certain materials or which educational policy are they
following are some of the tweets we were able to see.
It has been left for the weekend,
successfully, two topics where the principal action is on the Twitter
users and no on the institution: I am talking about #MuseumSelfie,
consisting on upload selfies taken inside the museums; and
#GetCreative where the user of this social network was encouraged to
use their wit and produce creative pictures or reinterpreting an
artwork, among other options. However it must be said that the
museums' CM have been active during the whole weekend doing
a commendable job with some probably underpaid overtime, so it has
been a very intense week for both freelance and institution
affiliated Tweeter users.
Therefore
we can say this week has been a great success for the participating
museums: for the big institutions it has served to enforce audience
loyalty and for the smaller ones to release themselves and acquire
some followers, which means more diffusion.
Though there
is still a lot to do, as it has been fun and entertaining but
we must think that, maybe, this diffusion we guess they have had it
has only been a mirage: we must take
account that an important part of
this social network users, specially the ones not linked, directly
or not, with the museums and culture, hasn't find out about
this initiative. This, anyway, is a task
for the next #MuseumWeek, because what does have been clear is the
desire and will of the museums, professionals and cultural sector in
general, to create links, to get out of the museum rooms and
to show the inside of every
institutions, as it has been proved this
last days with games, riddles and
upstanding their most fun and playful side; pretending
to develop a quality, open and participative job.
Guiomar Sánchez
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