Museums after the pandemic, from resilience to innovation: the case of the Uffizi

ABSTRACT

The article explores how museums have responded to the COVID-19 crisis, referring to the concept of resilience and critical juncture. Whereas the first relates to a system’s ability to recover or resume its original form after stress, perturbation, or shock, the latter refers to extraordinary conditions produced by unexpected and dramatic events that are able to enact profound and deep changes. The case of the Uffizi museum, which has suffered many lockdowns, shows that resilience measures have been accompanied by innovative actions redesigning the role of the museum. Some new projects could in fact be enacted because the pandemic was treated as a critical juncture. Any innovation, however, originated from the need to manage and decentralise tourism flows and revitalise local communities. The Uffizi has forged and implemented projects that value sustainability, community welfare, city decongestion, economic development, and inclusiveness, producing transformations on nature and vocation of the museum itself as well as on the neighbouring areas, becoming a propulsive fulcrum for other museums and cultural institutions.

KEYWORDS:

• Uffizi
• museums
• pandemic
• resilience
• critical juncure
• sustainability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Interviews

Interview 1: Galligani Tommaso, Spokesperson and Press Office, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, 9 May 2022.

Interview 2: Valdo Spini, Member of the Board of Directors, Uffizi Gallery and President of the Association of Italian Cultural Institutions (AICI), Florence, 28 April 2022.

Interview 3: Barbara Tosti, Head of Art, Activities and Cultural Heritage, Fondazione Cassa Risparmio Firenze, Florence, 10 May 2022.

Interview 4: Culture Council Member to Comune of Anghiari, 26 October 2022.

Interview 5: Alessia Busi, Manger of the Casle of Poppi, 4 November 2022.

Notes

1. The term crisis derives from the Greek word krisis originating from the verb krino which means separating, dividing, choosing, judging and deciding. Crises are therefore calling for resolute and immediate decisions.

2. The word resilience derives from the Latin verb resilire: ‘salire’ means to leap or jump while the suffix ‘re’ implies repetition, withdrawal, or backward motion.

3. There has been a major increase in research into the effects of the arts on health and a 2019 World Health Organisation (WHO) Report underlines the global evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being. The European Commission (2019) also recognised the importance of research on cultural crossovers, assessing the impacts of culture in different fields such as health and well-being.

4. ‘A museum is a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing’ (ICOM 2022).

5. Online or digital exhibitions, which replicate, extend and supplement physical collections are gradually becoming more commonplace, though among museum professionals, there is a general lack of consensus about what a digital or online exhibition might be.

6. Italy is administratively divided into 20 regions corresponding to the traditional territorial divisions.

7. According to ISTAT (2020), in 2018 only 11.5% of the Italian museums and similar state institutes had carried out the digital cataloguing of their heritage. Of these, only 20.8% have completed the digitisation process, 43.4% have digitally catalogued about half of the works while 35.8% have digitised less than half of their collections.

8. As of March 10, 2021, there were 7.4 million views of the videos collected by the page: the basic language in which they are shot is Italian, but they are also in several other languages, including Spanish, English, French and Latin which, alone, have obtained over 180 thousand views. All the videos remain available, as well as on the social network, also in a dedicated section of the site (www.uffizi.it) where there are almost 400 clips accessible to all. Many, in particular, are the appreciation for one of the last videos posted, on 7 March 2021, on the occasion of Women’s Day, with a little girl who dialogues with the works of the muse: over 236 thousand views obtained.

9. Galleries across the world are attracting snap-happy youngsters eager to impress their online followers. The involvement of social media influencers to make more young people visit museums is not just a Western phenomenon as it is for instance rather diffuse in China (The Economist 2022).

10. For visitors under 25 there was stable growth between the end of June 2020 and the third week of August. This is a growth that applies in particular to the 19–25 range. So the effect that could be called ‘Socrates-Ferragni’ (for visits to the Gallery of Martina Socrates on June 12 and Chiara Ferragni on July 17).

11. The agreement also sees the participation of the Uffizi and the Ministry of Culture in the selection of the Master of Comics within Lucca Comics Awards. The agreement will have an initial two-year duration at the outset and within its scope, a variety of shared initiatives may be undertaken in addition to exhibitions, events, cultural productions, creative, educational and scientific partnerships and much more. The works that will be on display in Lucca have been generously donated by the artists who participated in the ‘Fumetti nei Musei’ (Comics in the Museums), the project conceived by the Ministry of Culture.

12. Such a practice is not new. The Guggenheim, under director Thomas Krens (1988–2008), has been a pioneer in the so-called ‘satellite strategy’ (Goff 2017). The museum opened various branches besides New York: in Las Vegas and in Guadalajara, Mexico, as well as in many other locations in Europe – Venice (1951), Bilbao (1997), Berlin (funded by Deutsche Bank; 1997–2013). Other examples include the Hermitage and the Centre Pompidou in Shanghai; the Victoria and Albert Museum in Shenzhen; and the Rodin Museum in Brazil. The phenomenon can also be limited to a single country: in the UK, for example, the Tate Gallery, under the leadership of Sir Nicholas Serota, established a national brand, converting old industrial buildings into art galleries. The British Tate Gallery (built on the site of the former, panoptic Millbank Prison) established branches in the Liverpool Docks (1988), the St Ives Old Gasworks (Cornwall 1993), the Baltic Warehouse, Gateshead (2002) and, most successfully, in the old Bankside power station on the South Bank, London, the now famous ‘Tate Modern’ (2000).

13. Visits have increased from 3.3 million to 8.7 million in the first five months of 2022, rising by circa 172% compared to the first five months of 2021. Though the difference with the first five months of 2019 still seems relevant (−31.4%), the first five months of 2022 seem characterised by the return of tourists to places of cultural significance (+243%) as well as to the countryside (+245%) (Irpet 2022b).

14. Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze has signed a five-year memorandum of understanding: it immediately takes the form of five exhibitions that are part of the celebrations for the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, and at the same time deepen the link between the territory and the museum’s collections. ‘Terre degli Uffizi’ has its roots in the Fondazione supported project called ‘Piccoli Grandi Musei’ (Small Big Museums), see https://www.piccoligrandimusei.it/.

15. In detail: + 18% Poppi, + 14% Anghiari, + 18% Castiglion Fiorentino.

16. Thanks to the exhibition, running from 1 September 2019 to 3 May 2020, in this period there were 6,037 presences, +111.8% compared to 2019.

17. In August 2020 there were in fact 2065 visitors, + 63.9% compared to August 2019 (when there were 1,260).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Serena Giusti

Serena Giusti is lecturer of International Relations at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies and Senior Associate Research Fellow at the Institute for International Studies (ISPI) in Milan. She sits in the Advisory board of Women in International Security (WIIS) – Italy. She holds a Ph.D. in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute in Florence and a Master degree from the College of Europe (Natolin). She has extensively published on foreign policy, international security and securitization of cultural heritage. She is currently working on the role of Museums in Foreign policy thanks to a grant by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.