In accordance to health and safety guidelines to prevent the spread of Covid-19, most higher education institutions in the US made the transition to virtual education, at least till the end of the Fall semester. For many students, this transition has called for certain changes/adaptations to be …
Last winter break, I was visiting my family in Virginia when my mom suggested we go see Becoming Jane, a traveling exhibition organized by the Jane Goodall Institute at the National Geographic Museum in Washington D.C. She had visited previously with her sister, and knowing …
I decided to visit Isabella Steward Gardner Museum, as soon as I found out about its reopening.
The museum announced reopening on July 15th after nearly four months of the closure due to Covid-19. I missed going to the museums so much, that neither the long commute nor the rainy weather was able to stop me on the day of my intended visit.
New guidelines have been put in place to ensure the health and safety of the staff and the visitors. The museum visitors were required to prepare for the visit way before arriving to the sight firstly by reserving admission tickets online for a given time slot. A contactless scanning of the digital tickets took place at the admission desk which was shielded with a transparent plexiglas. All members of the staff and visitors were wearing facial covering. Arrow marks on the floors and stairs made socially distanced movement in the spaces much easier. The visitor capacity of the ISG was reduced to 25%. Overall, the museum felt safe and protected.
The visit to Isabella Steward Gardner even in this time of Covid-19, was extremely delightful. There were a few aspects of the visits which made the experience so unique. The first reason of a pleasant experience was that the museum was well prepared to receive visitors in terms of ensuring everyone’s safety.
As a result of the reduced visitor capacity, there was a prevailing atmosphere of peace and calmness, which is the second aspect which made this visit particularly memorable. Instead of feeling like a regular visitor much like how I felt being in these spaces during my previous visits, this time I felt like a special guest of Mrs. Gardner. The quietness around me allowed to free flight my imagination and ability to hear my internal dialogue. I pretended to be walking around the palace alongside the hostess. We talked about the artworks, debated about their meanings and even made fun of some. There was no rush, no distraction by other people or side sounds. I was so deeply engaged in my own world that I didn’t even notice the few other visitors who occasionally passed by me.
The experience of being in nearly empty gallery spaces of ISG was so immersive that I didn’t notice how two hours have passed by and I had to head out. As I was walking back to exit the museum, I wondered about the experience of other visitors during in these strange circumstances. I stopped to question of the guides to find some answers. The guide was nice and answered my questions enthusiastically. They said that most people described their experience with such words like “personal” and “intimate”. I thought those words accurately described my experience as well. Further, I thought it would be an interesting experiment to compare pre and post pandemic visitor experiences in the museum. How did the visitor experiences change pre and post pandemic, if they did at all? What were the visitor motivations to visit the museum in the time when public spaces provoke anxiety?
Happy First Week of School! In the time when there is still no vaccine for Covid 19, academic year is nearing a start for everyone from elementary to higher education students. According to my observations many teachers, students and their parents alongside institution managers are …
Abigail Epplett Uxbridge, MA M.A. Museum Studies, Office Manager at Fairlawn Christian Reformed Church This bone is from a domesticated cow (Bos taurus) that lived and died on a beef cattle farm in Dudley, Massachusetts, which is about a thirty-minute drive from my house. It …
I dearly love to travel. And whenever I’m making plans for a trip (because I am one of those people who tends to make a plan for each day of the trip), I usually include a visit to whatever museum(s) happen to be there. In light of our current circumstances, I have found myself reminiscing about my past visits to these museums and thinking more critically about my visits. One of the most interesting and thought-provoking ones was my visit to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. I think almost all of us had that ancient Egypt obsession when we were kids – for me, it entailed toting around a huge gold Egyptology book for kids, drawing pyramids with imagined traps inside to deter grave robbers, studying hieroglyphics, and promising myself that one day I would go to see the pyramids.
So you can imagine the depths of my delight when I had the chance to travel to Egypt and plan my visit to the Egyptian Museum. Nearly stuffed to the rafters with ancient Egyptian artifacts (so full, in fact, that newly-discovered artifacts are often put back into the ground with their location recorded in order to avoid having to find storage for yet another ancient object), what surprised me was that the Egyptian Museum was almost a monument to the history of Egyptology itself. Before I even entered the museum, I noticed the monument to Auguste Mariette and other prominent Egyptologists of the twentieth century. Almost all of these Egyptologists were not Egyptian, but rather European, many of whom were either French or British. Unsurprising, given Egypt’s history with these two nations. The architecture of the museum itself also has classical Western influences, with the ionic columns and Egyptian-stylized muses adorning the entryway.
Once I entered the museum after waiting in the incredibly long line outside the gates, I was struck by the vastness of the hall before me and the seemingly endless array of artifacts. Mounted unobtrusively on a column – it is very easy to miss – was a very sad replica of the Rosetta Stone.
Thin and less than half the size of the real one, this replica was an unimpressive imitation of the real thing and served as a reminder – to me, at least – of the extensive collection the British Museum has of artifacts that are culturally significant to nations around the world. I continued to make my way through the museum, which is organized chronologically. Many of the artifacts, as I progressed deeper and deeper into the museum, actually did not have any labels accompanying them. Those that did, I found, looked as though they had been there since the time of the Egyptologists who are remembered outside in the monument with Auguste Mariette. They were also just simply that – a label. No interpretation or description of cultural significance; just a short and to the point description of what the object is and where it was found. To be fair, there were some labels that were more updated with fuller descriptions. The small exhibit dedicated to Akhenaten, I remember, was fascinating. However, I do remember being a bit frustrated by all those artifacts – and even mummies – who sat quietly in their cases in a dusty corner without any description of what (or who) they were. It is as though the museum is rather more like a storage space that guests can wander through, or as though it was simply put on display before having to quickly move on to prepare space for the next artifact.
I remember having the distinct impression that it was as if many artifacts had only just been discovered and put out for guests to see, giving rise to my feeling that the museum is not only providing a history of ancient Egypt but also a history of Egyptology and the discovery of these fascinating artifacts. The many crates left lying in various corners (or even in the middle of some of the galleries) whose ancient contents one could only guess at only contributed to this sense.
While I certainly had a wonderful visit, I also felt that the Egyptian Museum was long overdue for an update. Which is why I was delighted to learn that the Grand Egyptian Museum is in the works and will open soon (although this opening date has been delayed a few times it seems). We drove past it on our way to the pyramids and I was in awe of the sheer size of the building as well as the highly stylized pyramid-inspired architecture. The Tutankhamun collection will be moved there and many artifacts that have never been on display will soon be appreciated by visitors.
I wonder, however, if visits to the Egyptian Museum will dwindle if the Tutankhamun exhibit moves out of it to the Grand Egyptian Museum. Hopefully, as the efforts to open the Grand Egyptian Museum continue, there will also be work done towards updating the original Egyptian Museum. The museum’s central location in Tahrir Square and its bright red-hued building makes it a bit difficult to sweep off to the side and simply forget about it. To do so would in some respects be the erasure of Egypt’s complex history of the study of its own past.