UK museums, art galleries, and foundations respond to COVID-19
From ‘UK museums, art galleries, and foundations respond to COVID-19’ published by e-flux on Friday 10th April 2020.
Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance | Nottingham Contemporary
3D Modelled Virtual Gallery
In response to COVID-19, the organizations collected here have all initiated virtual programmes with the aim of establishing a stronger dialogue with the public and jointly fighting the spread of the disease. Their new digital programmes range in topic and approach: from artist-curated newsletters to weekly screenings, from Virtual Reality to digital forests and wildlife, these organizations have re-purposed their websites and social media channels to ensure that art remain a relavent, productive, and positive force during these challenging times.
ICA, London
The ICA Daily
We here at the ICA thought in order to get us all through these coming weeks and months, the curatorial team would share with you every morning at 10am GMT some links you might find useful, inspiring, informative or that simply cheer you up while self-isolating, social-distancing, working from home or working to keep essential services going. Each morning Rosy, Sara, Steve, Nydia, Nico, Richard and myself will select what we think is worth watching, reading or listening to that day.
The days ahead will be unprecedented for all of us; but it is also never too early to start to think about the future—maybe we can come out of this together with a renewed sense of solidarity and civic purpose—it is maybe the last chance we have.
Watch out for your ICA Daily, and please feel free to share.
Stay well, and watch out for one another!
Stefan Kalmár
Director
Sign up: www.ica.art/sign-up
Website: www.ica.art/ica-dail
Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art
O Sole Mio
A virtual exhibition
Spring/summer 2020
First issue: April 9
Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art presents an online exhibition of works by a selection of contemporary artists and the wider artistic community in response to O Sole Mio. Inspired by the universal warmth and positive message of this Italian song, we have invited artists to contribute by making or writing a work in response to the concept, meaning and associations connected to the iconic lyrics and melody of O Sole Mio. Each week, we will present an issue of the online magazine featuring works by different artists and accessible on our website.
Website: www.parasol-unit.org
Gasworks
Throughout April and May Gasworks presents a series of online screenings of artist films commissioned for our exhibitions programme in recent years. Featuring works by Monira Al Qadiri, Louis Henderson & Filipa César, and Maryam Jafri, each piece will be available to stream on Gasworks’ website for one week and is accompanied by interviews with the artists, audio lectures and reviews.
The series begins with Al Qadiri's sci-fi film, The Craft, available to view from April 9-17, followed by Henderson & César’s Sunstone from April 27-May 3, and Jafri's Mouthfeel from May 11-17.
Website: www.gasworks.org.uk
Instagram: @GasworksLondon
The Showroom
Fortnightly Highlights
The Showroom has launched Fortnightly Highlights—an online interlude during the organisation’s temporary closure with opportunities for audiences to read, listen and watch. The digital Library shares open-source materials reflecting current projects alongside an extensive archive of past collaborations.
The current exhibition, Affection as Subversive Architecture, explores Spanish collective Recetas Urbanas’s practice of creating alternative architectural spaces and advocating active citizenship through participatory self-construction. By sharing the installation virtually—from self-building workshop videos to construction data sheets—The Showroom invites audiences to enjoy this living archive from home and join a dynamic communal learning environment through its new digital programme.
Website: www.theshowroom.org
Nottingham Contemporary
Nottingham Contemporary and V21 Artspace have worked together to bring audiences a selection of their past exhibitions in Virtual Reality. Exhibitions include: Still Undead: Popular Culture in Britain Beyond the Bauhaus; Lis Rhodes: Dissident Lines; Elizabeth Price: FELT TIP and Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance Act 1. These VR experiences work in any browser and contain video clips and interactive content.
Website: www.nottinghamcontemporary.org/record/virtually-visit-us
FACT
The Living Planet
FACT launches The Living Planet, a free online programme that explores our relationship with the natural world. The Living Planet will look at how we can build a more sustainable and responsible global community, thinking beyond the human and looking at ways in which wildlife, plantlife and other ecological systems have responded to the impacts of our actions.
Available for free, for everyone, 24/7. Follow a brand new series of digital commissions including artworks, podcasts, live streams, videos and challenges. New uploads every week for you and your loved ones to enjoy remotely.
Website: www.fact.co.uk/thelivingplanet
Acute Art
Will today’s immersive technologies, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), change the way we experience art? In collaboration with some of today’s exemplary artists, Acute Art explores new visual possibilities outside traditional institutional structures. The Acute Art X app allows you to view and explore VR artworks by Marina Abramović, Olafur Eliasson, Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg among others. The Acute Art app is a brand-new way to discover, experience and collect AR sculptures. Use the app to place AR sculptures by KAWS wherever you are. Create your own exhibition, document it and share it with your friends.
Wysing Arts Centre
During 2020, Wysing will be supporting over 40 artists whose work will put broadcasting at the centre of our programme, using digital technologies to connect with remote audiences in a way that privileges listening as much as the transmission of ideas and that builds and sustains radical online communities.
We are launching a project website to host live streams, new commissions and in-progress research; TRANSMISSIONS, a programme of live international broadcasts by invited artists established by Tai Shani, Anne Duffau and Hana Noorali and produced in partnership with Artquest, BALTIC, DACS and Studio Oscar Murillo; and a new Wysing Polyphonic mix series. Recently, we have been sharing highlights from our spring programme including a video profiling current exhibition artist Helen Cammock, a podcast series looking at Wysing’s formation and an online exhibition from our young people’s programme.
Website: www.wysingartscentre.org