Interview: Digital technologies, social media lifeline for museums in post-pandemic recovery: expert

MEXICO CITY, May 19 (Xinhua) -- Digital technologies and social media serve as a lifeline for reopening museums following the global COVID-19 pandemic, said the director of the Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts, a leading cultural venue in Mexico City.

In a recent interview with Xinhua, Director Miguel Fernandez Felix said social media platforms helped museums connect with the public during closure; now that museums are reopening, they can help bring back visitors.

"Let's not forget that technology is always an aid so that, at the end of the day, you have a pleasant experience, which is what a museum really seeks to achieve," Fernandez said as the city celebrated International Museum Day on Tuesday.

Mexican authorities ordered all cultural venues to close in December last year to avoid crowds. Museums as a result suffered a 70 percent drop in attendance and a subsequent decrease in income.

Almost immediately, museums turned to social media to stay in touch with their visitors and to keep the city's vibrant cultural life alive.

Like most museums, the Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts has already been operating social media accounts prior to the pandemic, but it is during the pandemic that the online presence of the museum was strengthened and expanded.

Those tools helped the museum "establish a framework for dialogue" with the public, said Fernandez.

For example, 3D technology was used to offer virtual tours of an exhibit shuttered due to the pandemic, which was a "great achievement" for the museum, he said.

Additionally, the museum created a website to stay in touch with museumgoers who were staying at home under pandemic regulations, and ended up expanding its sphere of interest to cover those who don't or can't regularly attend museums, he noted.

The museum has therefore begun to digitize its catalogs to encourage virtual online tours of its collection.

China is significantly advanced on that front, said Fernandez, referring to the Palace Museum, which uses short video platforms such as TikTok to reach younger audiences.

"The Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts is aware of the importance of social networks and the influence they have," he said.

He believes that young people will be able to see that museums are "places of enjoyment, of fun, of generating ideas," Fernandez said.

In the post-pandemic recovery, the challenge for museums will be how to reestablish their relationship with the public, he said.

"Now, museums have to rethink their direct environment, that is, with people (present). We have to start reconnecting with these audiences that go to museums," he added.

To that end, Fernandez expressed his interest in continued cultural exchanges between China and Mexico.

"It would be very laudable if we could continue to analyze possibilities for the future," he said, adding that a joint curation by the two countries would be a desirable idea.