24 Mar 2020

CULTURAL TOURISM FROM HOME AND FOR THE FAMILY.

Culture sector initiatives to schedule virtual activities.

Given the general situation caused by Covid-19, the culture sector has launched a series of initiatives that can be carried out from home and with the family.

Both national and international, Museums, Theaters or Musical Groups among others, have been pioneers in putting this campaign to which publishers, libraries or art galleries have joined to highlight some others. It is the culture brought home.

Campaigns like the #CultureAtHome brings together different cultural proposals that can be enjoyed as a family. The quality of the audiovisual material that is made available to the user is very diverse and the experience lived from the television or computer screen is very different and you will never be able to supply the presence in front of a painting, a sculpture, a concert or a play . Since necessity has become a virtue, there are currently many cultural centers, organizations and entities that have launched their own campaign to promote culture in all aspects, including the distribution of the product through social networks.

Some theater groups allow viewing the theater-movies of some of their recent successes. On the other hand, theatrical authors offer short monologues that serve as entertainment and an approach to the show where there is also space for the little ones since some of the musical groups or theaters have prepared shows in a reduced format and especially aimed at minors. Video-on-demand platforms are available to access online plays, dance, performance, or exhibitions.

Catalonia must be confined for a few weeks, but the cultural segment has had initiatives that allow people to enjoy their stay at home, publicizing the different programs that are made available to everyone. Even library users have access to the Catalan Public Reading System, through the E-Film (e-BiblioCatalunya) platform for streaming audiovisual loans. They have 2,500 film titles, short films, documentaries and concerts to be able to view it online. For its part, the Filmoteca de Catalunya also allows its press archive to be consulted online and the Barcelona Provincial Council has allowed access to audiobooks. All of this is accessed with the same Catalan card. The rest of the EU countries have very similar actions.

Apart from reading, cinema or music, you can also get to the cultural offer of the museums, both local and remote. To highlight online exhibitions at the Marítime Museum, the Museu Episcopal de Vic,  the MACBA or the MNAC MNAC (National Museum of Art of Catalonia) to have very different references to each of the exhibitions that can be visited. They are some of the samples that can be followed virtually. You just have to enter any of the different museums and cultural centers to have a look. Visiting the museums website, thematic tours can be made, ranging from the works of the artists, which are easily recognized because they are exhibited in the public space, such as accessing conferences, interviews or articles that the museums themselves carry out for the promotion and contextualization of his exhibitions. Museums as international and recognized as the British Museum in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Musée d’Orsay in París or the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh in Amsterdam, to highlight just a few, also allow access to its cultural offer and that are available to the user through Google Arts & Culture. Even, you can go further and enjoy the didactic and quite innovative proposal carried out by MOMA Audio, full of visual descriptions. For the most daring and professional of art, there are platforms that allow the sale of works of art online and that come from well-known art galleries.

To take into account another variable of the different options offered, especially oriented to those interested in the lyrical genre. The Liceo de Barcelona allows you to experience operas from home. A collaboration between the Royal Theater of Madrid and the Liceo have made a series of content available to the user through the “My Opera Player”, platform, which allows access to the opera, dance and concert video library from theaters around the world.

Finally, to find out the latest news in the publishing world or to decide which book some publishers want to read and their authors have decided to make available to readers an online selection of some of the most popular editorial titles. Here the Edicions62 publisher stands out, which allows you to download some works for free. For books in other languages ​​and with more general themes, there is also the “Books on Line” platform, which allows both reading and borrowing. In this sense, it also helps to promote reading in a time when it is not contemplated to be able to leave the house and to be able to share cultural activities that can be done alone or shared with the family.