Curating by all, for all: Art UK as a digital exhibitions platform

Abstract

Art UK is an online platform that enables public collections in the UK to share their holdings with audiences around the world. Seeking to democratise access to these rich collections, our Curations tool was developed to allow anyone, anywhere to create online exhibitions from the works on our site. Launching a few weeks into the national lockdown, Curations was adopted by museums across the UK to present surrogates of displays that had been shuttered due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This presentation discusses the thinking and development process behind Curations, its usage during lockdown by both collections and everyday users, and considered the future role of the online exhibition as a surrogate for collections, and a creative and learning tool for our audiences.

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