The next industry to reopen should be our museums and art galleries.

Why?

Because when Winston Churchill was asked to reduce their Arts funding during World War II he replied: “If it is not for our culture then what are we fighting for?”.

Art is not only essential to our visitors, to keep our institutions alive, our galleries who already lost their fairs, the artists they represent, but there is enough evidence that ART HEALS !

The World Health Organization CONCLUSIONSon what is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being is as follow:

The report from 2019 found evidence from a wide variety of disciplinary approaches and methodologies for the potential value of the arts in contributing to core determinants of health; playing a critical role in health promotion; helping to prevent the onset of mental illness and age-related physical decline; supporting the treatment or management of mental illness, noncommunicable diseases and neurological disorders; and assisting in acute and end-of-life care.

Safety?

We can easily respect social distancing and during the lockdown period we would recommend a 16m2 space per person leaving the person 4 meters away from the next. Every room has a security guard, so it is easy to implement. In Museums or Art Galleries you don’t touch anything, so no gloves needed.