We were expecting to close this blog on 6th May 2010, along with the election, but, since the election hasn't ended yet, neither will the blog. May as well add a few points!
Lucy Corrander - picturesjustpictures@googlemail.com . . . . . . . . . . Esther Montgomery - estherinthegarden@googlemail.com

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

4. MUSEUMS

Works of art and history stored out of sight by Museums should be released for display around our countries.

3 comments:

Bernard said...

Agree 100%.

Amanda said...

I can see a lot of worries about preservation and security of the objects, depending on where you are thinking of putting them. I'd rather see a programme of digitisation of these materials, making them freely available online for people to access. Then the originals are kept in safe, environmentally-controlled storage, but their digital counterparts are available for people to see.

I do agree that if things are being kept for the benefit of the public, then the public should be able to see them!

Lucy Corrander said...

Hello Amanda.

This is a plea for more regional museums and art galleries.

I'm not talking about taking delicate articles out of protected environments and would want all appropriate standards to be maintained. However, there are lots of things in the storage areas of museums which are there either due to lack of display-space or because there are plenty of similar items already on view within the building. These are the things I would hope to see dispersed and made more accessible.

Computers are great and it's good to be able to see archaeological discoveries and works of art through them but until you've seen a . . . I don't know . . . a Sumerian shard . . . a mediaeval painting . . . a muslin dress . . . in real life, it's hard to reconstruct a good idea of similar items in your head.