Museums in the pandemic: how the challenge #between_art_ and_quarantine affected the way old art operates in new media and social media

Abstract

The #between_art_and_quarantine challenge, which became popular in social media at the beginning of the pandemic, contributed to creating a lasting change in the behaviour of the audience of public cultural institutions. Its participants had to re-create a painting from a museum collection using household objects, take a picture of their creation, post it on Facebook with appropriate hashtags and “like” the museum’s profile on the site. For the first time the general public engaged so widely in re-interpretation of Old Masters works using new media with viral potential. Old Masters and creative processes became more easily accessible, egalitarian and democratic. The potential of Old Masters was also noticed by business organisations and used in advertising campaigns. Cultural institutions started to publish more content on their social media profiles promoting creative behaviour among their followers. Social media “engaged community” successfully transformed into actual museum-goers, which proves the increased numbers of visitors once museums re-opened after government-imposed temporality closure.