Having temporarily ceased to accept visitors and sent staff to work remotely, the Hermitage is mastering various modern means of communication that are convenient to use today and tomorrow.
We are not saying that the Hermitage has closed. It is not ceasing to function. The time of innovations that has come upon us is a reminder that a museum has several functions: to preserve, to study and to make its collections accessible.
The museum is being guarded more strictly than usual. The exhibits are being provided with the necessary climate; the custodians are making regular inspections of the exhibitions and permanent displays using the security service’s cameras. Members of staff are commenting from home on what those cameras are showing. Cameras on Palace Square, in the courtyard and in the Raphael Hall are sending pictures round the clock – morning, afternoon, evening and night.
The task of making the collections accessible has today moved online. It must be said that to a considerable extent that was happening anyway. Today we are trying to do that work in two ways. One is to “receive” visitors in the Hermitage. The other is to use a variety of technologies to tell people about the museum.
I think that to some extent this is a recipe for the future life of culture as a whole.
Punctually at 10.30 am, the Hermitage opens online, and at 6.00 pm it closes. At first it was live streaming, now it is specially pre-recorded videos from the halls and storage facilities, as well as guided tours.
In a week and a half, they have been viewed by more than 6 million people. That is more than the number of visitors that the Hermitage gets in a year.
The museum is functioning without visitors, but also without the queues that many complain about. Today it is possible to see things that you never get to see, even after struggling through the queues.
There is now the opportunity to play a game: what does it mean to have contact with an authentic object when the museum is closed and what is entirely virtual. Those are different things.
The museum without visitors and queues is what we are calling “cultured isolation” [intelligentnaya izoliatsiya]. Everyday work is continuing. It stands somewhat in contrast to the magical flood online that has arisen around it, which is a little reminiscent of a feast in time of plague.
We need to work calmly, without saying that everything is fine now and will be even better. No, it won’t. We are separated, but we should use this moment to learn new approaches that are much needed.
What do people get today when they pay a virtual “visit” to the Hermitage? Primarily it is guided tours around the deserted halls. We have given a first tour in Italian, for which we were thanked by the Mayor of Venice and the Italian Minister of Culture. We are preparing tours in English, French and Chinese. There has been a great demand for the virtual stroll on the museum’s website.
A particular success is the virtual visit to the Hermitage’s repository. It is usually open to visitors, but there are not many who make it to Staraya Derevnya. The Restoration and Storage Centre is the Hermitage’s particular knowhow, a special way of storing and showing things. The reviews are mixed. Some are delighted, but there are negative ones too. Not everyone can understand why we need open-storage facilities, why the commentaries are given by the keepers and not professional tour guides. But that is the very thing that makes it unique, something art gourmets can grasp. Working online replaces fast food with delicacies.
Our latest exhibitions have opened without the public or formal ceremonies. We have a separate introductory address and a guided tour. That’s the way we opened the exhibition commemorating Grand Duke Sergei Konstantinovich and the exhibition of contemporary Korean art. Korea is the country that is starting to get over the coronavirus fastest of all. The exhibits reached us earlier. They have been through customs and quarantine.
The guided tour of the exhibition “Studio 44. The Enfilade” was a hit. An interactive element is added by the translation of discussions that took place in the museum’s youth club. The exhibitions and broadcasts will be seen by more people than could come to their opening. Many people are thanking us.
Showing exhibitions in this fashion does not bring the museum money. Besides that, an “iceberg” looms that, admittedly, threatens to do more damage to theatres than museums. Companies that collect money for use of copyright material have become active and restrictions have started to be introduced. We are checking the rights to all our recordings and films.
Everyone is used to the idea that authentic is good and virtual is second-rate. The time has come to realize that the virtual helps to bring the authentic to the viewer, and how it can help a museum in and of itself.
Everyday we are broadcasting videos from our Treasure Gallery (the Gold and Diamond Rooms) that visitors rarely get to. Simultaneously, there is open access to a large range of Hermitage video programmes, which, let me remind you, are numerous. Each day we suggest a special selection published on the website.
We are also engaged in electronic paperwork, smoothly waging a struggle against our own bureaucracy. That is hard.
One more “iceberg” that we have been forced to encounter is rules about work practices and remuneration. How do you check up on someone when they are not at their workplace, how do you monitor their presence somewhere and give them tasks? That turns out not to be so simple: our laws are not geared towards that. Thanks to the crisis a procedure is being developed. We are helping to eliminate the shortcomings of the system.
Without particular pleasure, we are trying to find the maximum of convenience in modern technologies, which have their pluses and minuses. Difficult times force a search for new approaches and methods of performing the museum’s functions. And that means skilfully and correctly combining the virtual and the authentic. The task is to show people the museum almost as during a real-life visit.
I like one of the comments on our social network page: “Wonderful content and they aren’t trying to sell us anything.” The museum does not dictate interpretations. It makes people think, tells about complex matters and poses philosophical questions. Being an innovator is also the mission of a great museum.
Another of the “icebergs” that has appeared on our course is international contacts. A certain number of Hermitage items are in exhibitions in other countries. The borders are closed, and they cannot return. We have paintings and sculptures in Italy, France and the Netherlands. Items from Russian and foreign museums have remained in exhibitions at the Hermitage.
We are connected by good international collaboration. We are corresponding, informing each other what is going on. Miracles of bureaucratic urgency are taking place: time-frames for insurance and items’ stays in other museums are being extended. It’s not for nothing that we obtain guarantees from foreign states.
It's a question what will happen with the planned exhibitions. We hope that active collaboration between museums will continue. I would like to believe that the world will not close up, although there is that tendency. Still, today I discussed exhibitions for 2021 with Italian colleagues.
Our task is to preserve the unity of the museum sphere in Russia and worldwide. If we work at it, we will come out of the crisis with new communication skills appropriate to the 21st century. Those include the ability to manage without direct contacts where they can be replaced, As a result the value of direct contact, both between people and between people and the museum, will finally increase.
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