#Museums Unlocked and lockdown art

We've had a number of innovative lockdown art projects during the Coronavirus Lockdown. One of these was created by #MuseumsUnlocked - and this blog post is about that initiative

#Museums Unlocked - The Facts

1. It's a project developed by Dan Hicks (@profdanhicks) - who is a professor of contemporary archaeology at the University of Oxford and a curator at the city’s Pitt Rivers Museum
2. It ended earlier this month after running for 100 days. 
3. It was a Twitter project - run through the hashtag ##MuseumsUnlocked
4. The project had themes - one for each day (see below for the themes for Days 1-100)
5. People responded and posted images in response to the set themes (see examples below)
6. Most of the themes were to do with history and archeology - but some were related to Art.
7. People were invited to share their own pics of the museum in question
8. It produced what has been termed a "curatorial endeavour" by the culturally engaged Twitterati.

Please share your photographs of exhibitions, objects, architecture, events and more—so we can make a "virtual" visit tomorrow and see the museum through each others' camera lens.

Below are the themes for each of the days

Four pics provide the themes for 25 days at a time.

How to see what got posted

To view what people posted for specific topic you need to:

• log into Twitter
• put #museumsunlocked and the theme into the search window e.g. "#museumsunlocked + portraiture"
• do the search - and see what comes up.

Here's a few I found on various museum topics

Day 16: Tate Britain

Alice Comyns-Carr's 'beetle dress', made by Adaline Cort Nettleship in 1888 and worn by Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, went through a 5-year, £110,000 restoration. L, Sargent's ace 1889 portrait of Terry in it (Tate Britain); R, the dress (Smallhythe Place, Kent). #MuseumsUnlocked pic.twitter.com/N7MKXqfgGK

— Barbara Kiser (@barbkiser) July 6, 2020

‘Sunday afternoon, 1P.M., waiting for the public house to open’ by Edward Gurden Dalziel, 1874. I love this print and it’s rather apt given today’s good news that pubs will finally reopen 4th July. One of many prints owned by Vincent Van Gogh @Tate Britain #MuseumsUnlocked pic.twitter.com/0HItUMeiVV

— Alison Fisk (@AlisonFisk) June 23, 2020

Day 63: Portraiture

@MuseumsUnlocked this portrait of Michelle Obama by Amy Sherald @smithsoniannpg completely blew me away in person #museumsunlocked #portraiture pic.twitter.com/NGTe0rSVeO

— Melanie Renzulli (@melanierenzulli) June 2, 2020

#MuseumsUnlocked #portraits this is Florence Smyth b. 1634 and an unknown Black boy which hangs in @RedLodgeMuseum in Bristol. The Smyth family owned Ashton Court estate on outskirts of the city. For more about Black Tudors follow @MirandaKaufmann pic.twitter.com/a96hr4DAVM

— Ruth Hecht (@RuthHecht) June 2, 2020

Day 86: Drawing and Illustration

#MuseumsUnlocked #drawing
Our #PushingPaper exhibition explores how artists use drawing to experiment with the power of paper and it is now digital! 👉 https://t.co/ETFpGQO3T7 pic.twitter.com/zCsMCup3Sp

— Durham Uni Museums (@dumuseums) June 25, 2020

Thinking about the wonderful botanical art collection @Museum_Cardiff. Not just artistic gems, but botanically accurate too! #MuseumsUnlocked #Drawing #Illustration pic.twitter.com/kwQmdtiH9G

— Cardiff Curator (@CardiffCurator) June 25, 2020

After #Museums Unlocked

There's been an article in the Art Newspaper Now is the time to be radical which was very complimentary about the project

Through #MuseumsUnlocked, my Twitter feed had been punctuated every day by images of, and words about, places and objects, posted in response to daily themes set by Hicks, whether historic civilisations, particular cities or countries, or themes such as animals or food and drink. The results were a people’s curatorial endeavour—community art history and social history as told by visitors from across cultures and geographies; a collision of endlessly stimulating thoughts and pictures.

As for (@profdanhicks) this was today's tweet! He returned to work today!

Omg back in my office for the first time since March pic.twitter.com/06OISkou6m

— Dan Hicks (@profdanhicks) July 20, 2020