CHICAGO — A few advantages to digital museumgoing: 1. No lines. 2. No fees. 3. No alarms sounding when you venture a little too close to the item on exhibit.
So below are four great ways to visit museums digitally during this resurgent COVID-19 pandemic.
1. Explore nature with your kids
The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park is one of the larger museums that chose not to open back up this summer. Beginning in July, it’s been crafting a series of “Curious By Nature” YouTube videos that run 3 to 10 minutes long and are aimed at younger viewers. There are now 26 in the series, and they cover topics ranging from bird migration to the differences between reptiles and amphibians to nature-based art activities.
2. The museum of ideas
Beyond a small office in River North, the Chicago Humanities Festival does not operate in a fixed physical space. But it’s been bringing in top-notch speakers for more than a quarter-century now and recording their talks in front of, for the most part, packed auditoriums.
From this rich online archive, you could craft a pretty remarkable series of seminars, mini-courses and just general mind-opening events — a museum of ideas, if you will.
You want Nikole Hannah-Jones, ahead of her 1619 Project for the New York Times, on a panel talking about the great Chicago journalist Ida B. Wells? Check. You want comic John Mulaney interviewing theater director Andre Gregory from this autumn’s Digital Fall Festival in an event that was not titled “My Zoom Call with Andre”? It’s there too.
People complain about being led down online rabbit holes, but this compendium of artists, authors and activists — of thinkers and doers — is one of the most rewarding warrens you’ll ever plunge into.
3. “Notorious RBG” tour
The engaging museum exhibit “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” opened at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie early this year, as a tribute to the revered Supreme Court justice’s life. After her death in September, it took on memorial overtones.
And now, with the powerful and too often overlooked museum closed back down, “Notorious RBG” has become a virtual experience. Through Feb. 20, the museum is offering a series of virtual tours of the exhibit, free for members and $10 for others. The schedule and links for tickets are at ilholocaustmuseum.org/pubtours.
4. Going deep with Art Institute staff
You can learn more about some of the Art Institute’s greatest hits, as it were, in a series of short videos called the Essentials Tour.
But the deeper cuts, to follow the metaphor, are explored in a new series that also highlights a range of museum staffers. Begun in October, “Playing Favorites” gives people who work at the Art Institute a chance to showcase their favorite piece from the vast collection, one per video. In the five made so far, we meet works including a designer’s book exploring the almost 200 uses made of a commercially produced Dutch pig, a sculpture that is more concept than physical reality and a Victorian era photocollage that helped its maker advance in society.
