One of the more positive aspects of the lockdown is that the art and culture world has made considerable efforts to help us cope with our current restrictive reality. Sure, a virtual exhibit or a concert on IG live is not the same as a real-life one, but it’s still better than nothing and can provide some escapism and creative inspiration.
Now that I’m (hopefully) more or less over my unproductive, don’t-really-feel-like-doing-anything chapter of this quarantine life, I’m beginning to take advantage of all that the virtual world’s offering in terms of art, culture, and design experiences. Here are a couple of things I’m either doing or looking forward to trying in the next few weeks.
Frank Lloyd Wright virtual tours
Except for the Guggenheim Museum in New York, I’ve only seen and admired Wright’s buildings in photos in my art history books, so I was excited to see that many Frank Lloyd Wright sites are now opening their doors and organizing virtual tours. There are new tours every Thursday at 1 p.m. EST, you can attend them on Instagram by following #WrightVirtualVisits or the participating sites. The project launched on April 2 and will run until at least July 15.
We Are One – A global digital film festival
The most famous film festivals in the world have teamed up with YouTube to organize a 10-day digital film festival called We Are One. The festival will run from May 29 – June 7 on YouTube and will feature programming from 20 international festivals including Berlin, Cannes, Venice, New York, Sundance, Tokyo, Jerusalem, Sydney, and many more, enabling audiences to experience films from around the world.
We Are One is also a fundraising event that raises money for the WHO Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
Harry Potter At Home
Now you can reread Harry Potter, one of the best comfort books ever in a truly unique way. Every week, stars like Daniel Radcliffe, David Beckham, Stephen Fry, Dakota Fanning, and more will read a new chapter of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone. You can follow it on the Wizarding World website or listen to the audio version on Spotify.
Design Dispatches with the London Design Museum
One of my favorite museums in London, the Design Museum provides a lot of interesting free online content for design lovers. You can attend discussions and virtual studio tours with world-famous creators from the design, fashion, and architecture world, check out past exhibits from the Museum’s archives, and join interesting workshops, like a photography session with Felix Speller or a fashion workshop with Stella McCartney.
Cubicle Instagram Live workshops
Cubicle is a visual storytelling platform and bi-annual book series founded by digital content creator and photographer Shini Park. She was a pioneer in fashion blogging with her blog, Park & Cube, and then went on to launch a digital empire with a creative agency, digital storytelling campaigns, and Cubicle. Every two weeks, she holds a #workwithCUBICLE workshop on Instagram, where she and guest creatives share design tricks and tips. These are very practice-oriented sessions: the last one was about composition, typography, and layout creation, this week she showed how to work with Photoshop artboards. Super useful to aspiring creatives.
Collaborative art projects on Instagram
If you wanna flex your creative muscles, there are many cool projects and initiatives you can join on Instagram. One of the most popular challenges is about recreating famous paintings with stuff found at home. It was originally started by the Dutch account Tussen Kunst & Quarantaine (Between Art and Quarantine), but many museums have since joined like the Getty Museum in LA.
Another collaborative photo project was started by the National Portrait Gallery and the Dutchess of Cambridge. Hold Still is an ambitious community initiative to create a unique photographic portrait that captures the spirit, mood, hopes, fears, and feelings of the UK as it continues to deal with the Coronavirus outbreak. You can find some truly wonderful and inspiring photos on Instagram #HoldStill2020.
Visit a museum or check out a virtual exhibition
The Google Arts & Culture page and app is a must for every art lover. You can explore over 2000 museums from 80 countries as well as world-famous buildings and sites, play with art games on your phone, watch 360˚ videos, roam the streets looking at graffiti and street art, and so much more.
Google Arts & Culture is the biggest collection of artworks online, but most museums and galleries nowadays have moved at least some of their collections and exhibitions online, so it’s worth checking out your favorite ones to see what is currently on display. Two of my favorite photo exhibitions I’ve come across recently: New York Stories – Vintage Postwar Photographs and 2 Women of Style.
