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Abstract
This article is a personal reflection that examines the impact of the pandemic on the British Museum’s (BM) onsite interpretation and audiences; however, it is informed by robust visitor insight and evaluation as well as by direct experience. Quotes from the public are incorporated throughout. Covid-19 led to the BM’s closure on 18 March 2020, the first of several national lockdowns in the United Kingdom. The museum eventually reopened some of its galleries on 27 August 2020 with a carefully curated one-way route, primarily on the ground-floor initially.
George Floyd’s death was another pivotal moment in 2020. In response, the BM’s Director issued a statement in support of Black Lives Matter (BLM). This was welcomed by staff and volunteers, but it also attracted some critical comments on social media, including calls for the return of looted African objects within the BM’s collection. The museum made some modest but significant changes ahead of reopening, introducing a Collecting and Empire trail along the one-way route and redisplaying a bust of the Museum’s founder Sir Hans Sloane to acknowledge his links to slavery and empire.
The museum’s income-generating exhibition programme was much impacted by the pandemic, with planned shows Tantra: enlightenment to revolution and Arctic: culture and climate opening much later than intended, with significantly reduced visitor capacity and major adaptations. Another lockdown in December meant that the runs of both exhibitions were curtailed, with that for Arctic being drastically shortened. A significant shift to online events and resources, however, enabled these exhibitions to reach new, global audiences.
The BM again re-opened on 17 May 2021, with the government subsequently lifting Covid restrictions in England on 19 July 2021. However, the pandemic has radically changed the BM’s visitor numbers and typical audience profile by massively reducing the number of international visitors. The events of 2020-21 remind us of how interconnected our world is and how quickly what happens elsewhere affects us all. The challenges for museums have rarely been greater, but there are also opportunities for institutions to rethink their relationships with audiences and the wider public.
Notes
1 The three ‘Museums, Museum Professionals and Covid-19’ surveys published by ICOM provide extremely useful insights into the impact of Covid-19 on museums around the globe.
2 Qualitative evaluation at the BM usually consists of focus groups, typically five or six per project and each with six to eight participants. Summative evaluation of special exhibitions uses quantitative methods, with visitors usually completing an online survey following their visits. Sample sizes for summative evaluation range from between 600 and 4,000 people. This article draws on a number of qualitative and quantitative studies listed in the references, and unpublished annual survey data compiled by DJS Research Ltd. The British Museum also analyses social media, producing internal reports focusing on responses to particular posts or issues.
3 The dates given here are those originally intended for the exhibition. The closure of the museum meant these dates were subsequently revised, with each show eventually opening much later than planned, and for shorter durations.
4 Within a few months staff has been issued with work laptops and other equipment to allow them to work from home and to remotely and securely access the museum’s various drives and systems.
5 Most of these staff did not return from furlough until October 2021; between April and October 2021 a much smaller group of core staff kept the museum running.
6 For a summary of the ways the museum used digital content to engage the public during the early phases of lockdown, see https://blog.britishmuseum.org/how-to-explore-the-british-museum-from-home/.
8 #MuseumFromHome was a hashtag widely used throughout lockdown by museums in the UK. ‘Museum From Home’ was also the title of a programme broadcast by the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) on 30 April 2020 to mark the culmination of a week-long celebration of museums and galleries during lockdown. For more information, see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/enxcd4/live/c954wh.
9 The initial groups were Mobilisation; Space Planning; Hygiene, Cleaning, Waste Management and Logistics; Human Resources; On Site Projects; Public Programming (including the Visitor Experience Group and the Signage Recovery Group). Each group reported to the Recovery Steering Group which had overall responsibility for the reopening of the museum.
10 Many other museums adopted one-way routes through their permanent collections, including other national museums like the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Gallery, both in London. The British Museum’s one-way route was arguably the most prescriptive of the UK national museums, in part because both the scale of the building and the usually high level of visitation required a cautious approach.
11 Both of these comments were posted on Twitter by members of the public during August 2020. The museum analyses social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) comments made in response to its own social media posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
12 The statue of Colston subsequently became part of a display at M Shed, Bristol, The Colston statue: What next? (4 June 2021-3 January 2022).
13 This group comprised: the Keeper of Nile Valley and Mediterranean Collections; a Curator from the Africa section); the Keeper of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, the Simon Sainsbury Keeper of Prints and Drawings, the Curator of the Enlightenment displays), and the Head of Interpretation and Volunteers. The texts were reviewed by the Director and Deputy Director and several external academics.
15 Material looted from Benin by the British army in 1897 held by many British museums—as well as by other institutions in Europe and North America—has been the focus of new scholarship and renewed demands for restitution. Significant works include books by Dan Hicks (Citation2020) and Barnaby Philips (2021).
17 The pandemic has finally seen the QR code become an effective means of connecting a visitor onsite in an exhibition or gallery with online content. When QR codes were first introduced at the British Museum in 2011, they attracted little engagement from the public. The UK’s Test and Trace scheme, however, has succeeded in raising awareness of the QR code.
19 These figures are taken from data gathered by DJS Research Limited as part of the museum’s annual visitor survey.
20 The special exhibitions have often been fully booked at the weekends, with reduced capacity, but during the week demand has been slightly lower. Charged-for exhibitions at the BM always attract a predominantly UK audience, unlike the free galleries where visitors from overseas usually dominate.
21 On 11 November 2021—after a period of consultation—the museum introduced ‘Future Ways of Working’—a new 12-month project to pilot new ways of working over the course of the next year, with the aim to strike a balance between flexible homeworking, working together in person and on-site.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Stuart Frost
Stuart Frost is Head of Interpretation and Volunteers at the British Museum, London. He recently co-curated Collecting Histories: Solomon Islands, Collecting and Empire and Desire, Love, Identity: Exploring LGBTQ Histories. He has worked on many exhibitions and gallery projects at the museum since 2009 and leads on visitor research and evaluation. He spent eight years at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, working on new permanent gallery displays.