Pretty much everything has been closed down during the State of Emergency in Spain but even when the doors are shut, there’s a whole lot going on in Museums in Palma.
Imma Prieto, who's Manageing Director of Es Baluard, Maria Gràcia, Director of the Museum of Mallorca and Francisco Copado who's Managing Director of the Miró Foundation are turning the lack of visitors to their advantage.
"What is happening is something totally extraordinary," says Imma Prieto, "the first thing we have done is set an order of priorities, we are a team and even although it (Es Baluard) is closed and educational activities, workshops and visits have been cancelled, we don’t stop working.”
“The first job is to create and update web content, because we want to share the contents of the museum with internet channels and social networks and reformulate and expand,” says Prieto.
Some projects have been on the ‘to do’ list for quite a long time and she says the State of Emergency provides the perfect opportunity to tackle them.
"We will try to get things done during these 15 days and if the State of Emergency is extended we will start on things that we’ve been meaning to do for years, like updating the collection with the Museum Plus program to include data and information of all the works. It is a very useful program that allows us to share the content,” she says.
"Thirdly, we want to look to the future and prepare projects and texts, taking into account what kind of public aid is offered at European level, because this whole bureaucratic issue is complicated,” says Prieto. “We have to have minimal services and even although most people do their work from home, these minimum services are key to conserving the exhibitions and collections.
The Museum of Mallorca is also operating with a skeleton staff, taking all the necessary precautions and opting for telework according to Director, Maria Gràcia Salvà, who’s in charge of Ca la Gran Cristiana.
“We are operating a minimum service, but there are administrators, technicians and ordinance staff working shifts too,” she says.
Social networks, such as Twitter or Facebook are the tools that the Museum of Mallorca uses to share information with the public and Salvà says maintaining that is a priority.
"We want the museum to stay alive, to offer content, not to fall", she says.
The museum is also part of a new initiative from the Consell de Mallorca, #ElsMuseusaCasa, and where appropriate will use the tag #MuseuDeMallorcadesdeCasa.
"People will be able to see works from the collection and we are also planning to make videos of the collection," says Salvà.
As the crisis in Spain continues, Francisco Copado, who’s Managing Director of the Miró Foundation, says it’s important to keep calm and stop people panicking.
”I try to convey an atmosphere of calm to the workers, these are extraordinary circumstances which are changing all the time, so we have to make decisions."
“The Miró foundation continues to work as normally as possible,with some staff working from home and others here,” says Copado. “We are taking turns with both options and trying to have as few people as possible physically here."
As with the other museums, the Miró Foundation is reliant on social networks and internet traffic while the State of Emergency over the coronavirus is in force.