Culture in Quarantine, 27 April 2020: Online Family Fun
27 April 2020
Since lockdowns began around the world many cultural venues have moved their content online. Some have also developed new digital initiatives. Many of these are aimed at children and families and there are some great resources and activities on offer. Here’s a roundup of the some of the best ones.
Arts and culture for all
Google Arts & Culture is a fantastic online platform that brings together content from thousands of museums, galleries and other creative organisations. You can choose from virtual tours of major museums, street art tours of cities, zoom in on famous paintings and more. Our favourites include learning how to explain contemporary art using emojis, saying hi to a T-Rex and watching a virtual penguin tour Holland’s famous Rijksmuseum. If you weren’t aware of it before, take a look – there’s loads to explore.
The Firstsite Art Centre in Colchester has just launched a downloadable artist activity pack called ‘Art is where the home is’. It includes contributions from critically acclaimed artists including Antony Gormley, Grayson Perry, Jeremy Deller and Gillian Wearing.
World famous illustrator Quentin Blake has made a series of colouring sheets available free of charge. The Big Draw is sharing some brilliant ideas and links to downloadable resources from its Twitter feed and there's lots of useful content on the ‘Kids in Museums’ news page too.
Virtual Museums
If you'd like to visit some galleries and exhibitions from the safety of your sofa, many of our world leading museums are offering virtual tours, online access to collections, digital image resources, podcasts, videos, creative activities and learning resources. The Met has a 'hop in time machine', while the Louvre has developed a virtual reality experience for the ‘Mona Lisa’ - a painting which is normally viewed by more than 20,000 visitors each day! Find out more from the following links:
Closer to home
Here in the South West, the Eden Project has some interesting activities on offer and there are lots of fun things available on the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery’s website, including making shadow puppets, Roman shields and Viking long boats.
Devon-based artist Becky Bettesworth has made some of her lovely poster designs free to download and colour in. Free downloadable colouring sheets featuring some well-known Plymouth landmarks are also available from the Visit Plymouth website.
You can download digital copies of magazines and comics for free from your computer, smartphone or tablet and use your library card to download eBooks and eAudiobooks from Plymouth Library Services. You can also enjoy regular storytelling sessions on their Facebook page.
And don’t forget, our Natural History Curator wrote a great blog post recently about creepy crawlies and other creatures to look out for if you're exploring your gardens.
We hope these links give you some food for thought and some interesting ways to stay creative while you’re staying safe.
with thanks to Beth Hart, Engagement Officer (Families)