Before the celebrations of International Museum Day 2019, take a look at last year’s edition

In 2018, the theme of International Museum Day (IMD) was “Hyperconnected Museums: New approaches, new publics”. With this theme, museums were encouraged to shift their approach to their collections through technology by exploring and strengthening the connections that tie them to their communities, cultural landscape and natural environment. Celebrations were held in 143 countries and territories around the world, and it was a national holiday in 92 countries.

Inspired by the theme of hyperconnectivity, museums organised thousands of innovative activities to celebrate International Museum Day 2018. In Egypt, the Egyptian Museum in Cairo organised a virtual visit for Vietnamese schoolchildren, and in Australia a Wikipedia Editathon was held to create pages for Victorian museums and galleries who don’t have one. In Brazil, visitors of the Museo de Arte Contemporâneo da Universidade de São Paulo were encouraged to record a 1 minute video introducing their favourite artwork by a female artist, and in Austria 22 museums exchanged their Instagram accounts. In Shanghai, the International Museum Day celebrations were taken out of the museum walls with a metro train which was decorated with the IMD poster’s colours and patterns!