KARACHI: Despite the predicament due to COVID-19 Pandemic, aficionados did celebrate the International Museum Day (IMD) on 18th May, 2020.
Since its founding in 1977, IMD (coordinated by the International Council of Museums – ICOM) has been held every 18th of May to celebrate museums as valuable spaces for cultural exchange. This year the theme was Museums for Equality: Diversity and Inclusion.
Like all other Performing Arts, Cultural, Sports and Literary events, Museums too had to suffer financially due to the Coronavirus-lockdowns in recent months. According to the American Alliance of Museums, across the US, museums are daily losing $33 million.
Similarly, museums and galleries all over the globe had to remain closed. For instance, Raffaello, an exhibition at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale marking the 500th anniversary of the death of Raphael closed just after three days on 8th of March.
While many museums have resorted to provide online virtual tour of exhibitions, Architect David Chipperfield’s glass-fronted West Bund Museum became the first to reopen for public after lockdown measures were relaxed.
The exhibition The Shape of Time, part of a long-term partnership with France’s Centre Pompidou, is still on view. The show consists of more than a hundred works of modern European art loaned from the Paris institution’s permanent collection.
More and more museums are slowly reopening, particularly in Europe and Asia, adhering to new rules on temperature checks and social distancing etc. Many museums are allowing one visitor per 20 square meters of the exhibition space.
Here, State Bank of Pakistan Museum & Art Gallery (established in 2004 in order to introduce first Monetary Museum of the country) launched a Virtual Exhibition on IMD. State Bank Museum had requested for donations of art, journals, and scrapbooks documenting life under COVID 19, homemade masks or any other item made/used during the the Pandemic era.
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