As a result of the pandemic, in March 2020,
world museology was cut off from the direct contact with
their public. Owing to the introduced regulations, Polish
museums were closed down on three occasions (14 March
– 4 May 2020, 15 Oct 2020 – 31 Jan 2021, and 20 March –
4 May 2021). When searching for new forms of activity, in
2020, museums made an enormous technological progress,
and mastered numerous new competences allowing them
to move in cyberspace with ease. The pace at which
they introduced various ‘online’ formats is worthy of
appreciation. Presently, the time has come to ask whether
the effectiveness in reaching the public via such means truly
contributed to consolidating a strong bond with them. In
order to get the answer to this, it is necessary to critically
assess the museum efforts, which will not be possible
without researching into the Polish public over that period.
Wishing to voice my opinion in the critical discourse
on the museums’ activity during the pandemic, I have
decided to share my experience from a selected activity
of the Museum of Krakow: I have presented the effects of
the social Programme titled ‘Stay at Home and Tell Krakow’
(#zostanwdomuiopowiedzkrakow).
The Museum created this programme convinced that
a city dweller, exposed to the oppression of the pandemic
will feel the urge to share his or her experience. Apparently,
the appeal made by the Museum of Krakow was eagerly
responded to. The Museum received ‘stories’ about the
pandemic in different formats: prose, poems, diaries, visual
arts, and even musical pieces and artifacts.
The results of the ‘Stay at Home and Tell Krakow’ Programme
are currently hard to sum up, however, what seems a valuable
and worth analysing experience is the focus of residents’
attention on the Museum which they considered an
institution trustworthy enough to entrust it their private,
often intimate reflections on living through that challenging
period.
Cure dialitiche domiciliari. Una frontiera da raggiungere, senza trascurare le criticità
