Museum Approaches

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Barcelona City Council asked Close to Culture for an emergency intervention to several municipal residences, to help through art to combat isolation, sadness and improve the mental health of large people served.

Close to Culture starts the project The Museum is Approaching in autumn 2020 in the hands of 6 museums: National Museum of Art of Catalonia, Picasso Museum, Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Fundació Suñol and the CCCB, the latter carries out an essential contribution thanks to his extensive experience working with the group through its Alzheimer Program. In this first phase, art is managed to reach more than 600 people.

As of 2021, new municipal museums will be incorporated into the project: Museu Frederic Marés, Museu d’Història de Barcelona (MUHBA), Museu Etnològic i de les Cultures del Món and Museu del Disseny de Barcelona.

To people cared for in 8 old people's homes in the city of Barcelona. The workshops are designed especially for people with addiction who see their mobility restricted, and also for those people with Alzheimer's or other mild dementias.

From September 2021, any residence in the city of Barcelona will have access to the program through the Close to Culture website.

1. Fostering the connection between the participants.
2. Maintaining hope and optimism.
3. Encounter with meaning in personal experience.
4. Empowerment understood as favoring control over one's own decisions.

• Welcome and presentation of the activity.
• Get to know artists, landscape paintings, still lifes, portraits, everyday objects and the urban and natural environment.
• Talk, remember and reminisce.
• Observe images that favor the connection.
• A space to sing and get excited to take us to moments of joy and optimism.
• Other resources used: music, cinema and tactile objects.
• Farewell: until the next session and best wishes!

The activity was visited by educators from the main museums of the city of Barcelona: National Art Museum of Catalonia, Picasso Museum, Barcelona Museum of Natural Sciences, Center for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB), Frederic Marés, Barcelona History Museum (MUHBA), Ethnological and World Cultures Museum and Barcelona Design Museum.

The space where the activity took place depends on each residence.
• It takes place in the Fort Pienc i F. Layret residence in the library.
• In the J. Miracle residence it is developed in a dining room.
• At the Onada residence hall, it takes place in the gym / rehabilitation room

1. The satisfaction of the participants.
2. Openness to new scenarios.
3. Teamwork and adaptation.
4. Continuity of the program. This is a need detected during the pandemic but which requires continuity.
5. Scalability. Possibility to extrapolate the experience to other museums and residences around the world.

We invite you to learn firsthand the impact of the project by reading the report made with the participation of the educators who carried out the interventions, the staff of the residences that participated, an evaluator internal and external.

Read the report