Portraying What is in Front of You: Virtual Tours and Online Whiteboards to Facilitate Art Practice during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The arts and education fields recognize the importance of museums and art galleries as not only buildings that house hundreds, often thousands, of specialized objects, artworks, research, and conservation but rather as institutions sharing the history of people and their environment, thus they play a substantive role in modern society. For art students, practitioners, and hobbyists, these institutions are often visited to provide inspiration and practice, although the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact. National lockdowns and restrictions, and social distancing measures meant museums and art galleries underwent mandated temporary closures, and socially distanced specified visitor routes often meant onsite art practice was no longer permitted. This exploratory pictorial takes a first-person research method to present a collection of reflections, experiences, and example artworks by facilitators of an art practice group that moved from on-site to online practice during the pandemic.