Dusseldorf – Reopening culture & arts

Step by step, and with special regulation, museums and other cultural institutions in Dusseldorf, Germany, are opening again after the corona lockdown. The number of visitors is limited and hygiene measures have to be obtained. It is recommended to wear a mask. You can read more here (in German) about the institutions already open and here about the next ones to follow. Also the municipal music school, which went to online lessons during the lockdown, opened its doors again. And the department of culture, in cooperation with local artists, has handed out 600 ‘Art Bags’ with materials and instructions for making crafts and arts to kindergartens and refugee homes.

Contact: Stefanie Nietfeld

Haarlem – Virtual museum

The Teylers Museum in Haarlem (Netherlands) is physically closed due to corona, but the museum is virtually open. Visit the museum from your own living room, wander through the building and discover the collection in detail. Children have dedicated tips available for nice activities and the stories of the employees of the Teylers Museum. The museum also gives live tours via Instagram, the recordings of these Teylers Home Tours can be viewed on YouTube. Read more here (in Dutch)

The starting point for the virtual visit to The Teylers Museum

Contact: Valentina Schippers

Milan – Easing lockdown

The city of Milan has announced plans for the gradual reopening of public museums, exhibition spaces and libraries under specific sanitary measures. In addition 1,100 police officers are being deployed to oversee that measures are heeded in around 400 newly reopened playgrounds. The city council is also discussing to distribute the remaining monies raised through the city’s Mutual Aid Fund. Read more here

Contact: Olimpia Vaccarino Aureli

Leeds – Museums and galleries go digital

Leeds Museums and Galleries are giving residents the chance to travel back in time and explore thousands of years of history from home thanks to a new series of online digital discovery sessions. This includes hosting a series of online videos examining artefacts from the Leeds Discovery Centre, which is home to more than a million objects from prehistory, Ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire. Visitors also have the opportunity to choose which objects will be covered by the online sessions by voting for their object of choice via a Facebook poll. Visit the site initiative here

Contact: Titus Carey

Bologna – Rethinking museums

Museum of Industrial Heritage of Bologna

The emergency programme for the municipal museums in Bologna due to the corona lockdown is driving a general change, as the city expects. Museums are turning into culture hubs, involving new digital projects into the organic planning of culture and museum activities. The 13 municipal museums, covering archeology, ancient art, modern and contemporary art, music, industrial heritage and technical culture, history and memory, are developing a new digital narrative of the contents of their collections. You can read more here

Contact: Francesca Martinese

Dusseldorf – Doors closed, eyes and ears wide open

While Dusseldorf’s cultural institutions remain closed due to the corona pandemic, a wide range of free digital offers are available online: virtual museum tours, recordings of concerts and opera performances as well as hands-on activities and tutorials for children and young people. An overview of these programmes, updated regularly, can be found on the website of Dusseldorf‘s Cultural Department

Contact: Stefanie Nietfeld

Bilbao – Actions for culture

Bilbao city council has undertaken a host of measures to give a boost to access to culture during confinement. These include publishing the city’s cultural agenda online; offering free access to thousands of digitised services through its libraries; and offering some virtual access to the Bilbao Guggenheim museum. Read more here

Contact: Alazne Zugazaga

Oulu – Virtual museum tour

The Kiss of the Sun, an exhibition of paintings by Ellen Thesleff currently at the Oulu Museum of Art, is now available as a virtual tour from the comfort of your home. All you need is a computer, tablet or smartphone with Internet connection to take the virtual tour consisting of a number of 360 degree panorama scenes. The virtual tour is available until 31 May 2020, and is free of charge for everyone. Read more here

Contact: Anne Rannali

Karlsruhe – Local support

Karlsruhe has set up the platform #supportyourlocals enabling people to shop locally. Deliveries are done by bike or, for longer distances, by post. While keeping business alive, the UNESCO City of Media Arts offers a digital cultural programme to keep people engaged, as well as the ZKM Center of Media Arts, and numerous museums and galleries. Read more here and here (in German)

Contact: Regina Hartig

Vienna – Historical corona collection

The Wien Museum is inviting people to send photos of objects that portray the changes in their private and professional life due to this crisis. The pictures will form the collective memory of Vienna’s inhabitants about this moment in history and will be preserved for future generations. In the future, a selection of the objects will be incorporated into a physical collection at the Wien Museum. Read more here

Contact: Michaela Kauer or stay up to date at @Stadt_Wien

Bordeaux – One artefact a day

The city’s cultural services have been showcasing one work per day from Bordeaux’s museums, libraries or botanical gardens, or from one of the region’s cultural attractions. In addition, a large proportion of the collections held in the city’s public museums are available online. Read more here (in French)

Contact: Marie-Elisabeth Sapin

Dusseldorf – Live from the zoo

Several of Düsseldorf’s cultural institutions offer tours and events online. The Aquazoo (a renowned zoo for mainly aquatic animals) streams online shark feedings. The local theatre Schauspielhaus offers behind-the-scene tours and the Maritime Museum (Schifffahrtsmuseum) can be visited virtually. Read more here (in German)

Contact: Stefanie Nietfeld

Cardiff – Gallery goes online

Cardiff based fotogallery has launched several initiatives to encourage creativity during the Covid-19 crisis: an online photo competition, a new weekly digest with creative activities to do at home, online resources, including a virtual tour of their current exhibition, and an platform for European artists. Read more here.

Contact: Ian Catlow

Dusseldorf – Poems over the phone

The municipal Heinrich-Heine-Institute in Dusseldorf, a museum dedicated to the German poet Heinrich Heine, offers the reading of poems and other texts over the phone during the time it is closed due to the corona regulations. The museum also publishes educational videos, readings and quizzes on Instagram and Facebookto to keep eager Heine fans busy. Read more here (in German).

The municipal Clara Schumann music school offers digital music classes for its students. The lessons are conducted online or via video messages, students receive their music sheets online and send their rehearsed recordings to the teacher. Read more here (in German)

Contact: Stefanie Nietfeld

Nice – Culture online

Nice is keeping culture open online. Through it’s platform oncultivate-you.nice.fr, the city has launched twenty online programmes including films, concerts, ballets, visits to heritage places, exhibition, and conferences! There is even a free moment when artists and musicians have a carte blanch to perform as they want. Read more (in French) here.

Contact: Jérôme Sieurin

Stuttgart – Digital art tours

The museum StadtPalais in Stuttgart is going fully digital. Under the title ‘Online for you’, a varied programme of interactive live tours, digital visits and media guides for home are offered, as well as online workshops for children and families, speed runs and live guests. The whole programme is for free.

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Leipzig – Museum makes videos for kids

Leipzig’s natural history museum is creating videos for children to replace its exhibition on the deep sea, which was supposed to open at the end of March. A carpet of rubbish swirling above a shipwreck, the installation, and subsequently the videos that the museum is creation, will explore areas such as evolutionary history, biodiversity and environmental protection, until the museum can be opened again. Read more (in German) here.

Contact: Christin Rettke