17 June 2020
Museums and other cultural organizations were among the first to close down after quarantine was placed in many countries all over the world. Museums of Kazakhstan were of no exception.
Social exclusion and other restrictions forced museums to rethink their work style to maintain interest of their regular visitors. And today the State Art Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan named after Kasteyev located in Almaty is sharing a story of one of its work days.
On May 180, 2020 the State Art Museum named after Kasteyev conducted its annual large-scale project dedicated to the International Museum Day, but this time online.
"Night at the Museum» Art Festival which takes place offline annually on May 18, gathers from 5,000 to 10,000 visitors. Fans of high-quality entertainment programs still cannot forget the previous Nights of 2016 - 2019. State Museum employees offer their visitors a variety of informative, interactive and entertaining programs. The purpose of the “Day and Night at the Museum” campaign is to preserve museum values, unleash the potential and attract young people to culture and history. Only once a year, all museums of the world simultaneously open their doors to visitors at night. The main motto of the Night at the Museum is openness and accessibility for the audience around the world. To this end, the main purpose of this festive artistic and cultural campaign is to popularize various arts and to attract citizens’ attention to museum programmes.
This year, because of quarantine, the Night at the Kasteyev Museum was held online and yet, at a large scale. Facebook acted as the main platform of the Festival, where 38 (!) broadcasts were offered to the audience during the night. The content was based on a number of online events, including excursions around museum exhibits, creative video workshops, online art exhibitions, as well as diverse online entertainment programs designed for audiences of different ages. Traditionally, musical, choreographic, theatrical and other creative groups took part in the Night at the Museum. At the end of the Festival, and traditionally for all Nights of the Kasteyev Museum, viewers watched a fire show video produced by a resident of the Lumiere Elemental Show project.
An unprecedented online Show "The Living Pictures" was the headliner of the Art Festival. This part of the program was designed specifically for the online project. Only museum staff and paintings from the Kasteyev State Museum exposition were exclusively filmed in the project.
For more information about the Lively Pictures please visit the website.
All publications of the Night at the Kasteyev Museum 2020 Festival can be viewed here.
Permanent link: http://en.unesco.kz/how-museums-adapted-to-quarantine