How 20th century epidemics can help museums run in post-Covid-19 era

The experiences of three 20th century epidemics - Tuberculosis, Spanish Flu and AIDS - will help museums run in ‘the new normal’ post-Covid-19 pandemic owing to several short-term and long-term challenges.

In a paper on ‘History of Viral Diseases and Museums’, Dr Bhujang Bobade, the curator of Jalgaon-based Gandhi Research Foundation, points out how to meet the challenges in the prevailing and forthcoming scenarios.

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How museums can help combat Covid-19 with the internet, IT, AI and robotics, would be a big answer to the problems, Bobade told DH. “The worldwide spread of Covid-19 reminds those of us working in museums just how vulnerable our institutions—not to mention our communities—are during public health crises. Already some museums have positioned themselves as leaders, distributing information and hosting town halls about what to do during a pandemic. Others have cancelled or postponed programs, stepped up sanitation measures, or even gone so far as to temporarily close out of concern for the safety of visitors and staff,” Bobade, one of the foremost museum experts and prolific writer, said in the paper.

Reviewing how museums responded to three major 20th-century epidemics and what we learned in the process can help our field chart its way through the coronavirus crisis, he said.

“At its peak in the early 1900s, a diagnosis of tuberculosis led to the deaths of one out of seven people. To combat the spread of the disease, public health workers reached out to museums for help. The idea was that multi-lingual didactic material, coupled with large-scale displays, would communicate effectively to a wide audience,” he said.

Between 1905 and 1909, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and the Smithsonian developed and hosted two exhibitions about tuberculosis: its aetiology, how it spread, and the damage it could cause in those who contracted it, supplemented by illustrated pamphlets about prevention and self-care in languages like Chinese, Yiddish, and Italian. Big signs read “Don’t Spit.” The shows attracted such large crowds—some say, over one million—that AMNH had no choice but to extend its hours. “Tuberculosis” was the first blockbuster in US museum history, a harbinger for other popular shows with social relevance.

“The 1918 H1N1 (Spanish Flu) pandemic, coronavirus is the global pandemic of our times. But Spanish Flu remains the deadliest in modern history, killing at least 50 million people and infecting more than 500 million. The 1918 H1N1 virus played a critical role in altering the course of India’s history. Mahatma Gandhi, the chief architect of India’s independence, was one of the millions who contracted the Spanish Flu. If he had not survived, India’s struggle to shed the British colonial yoke would have taken a drastically different route. Gandhi went to spearheaded the movement that bought India independence. The flu that killed an estimated 18 million Indians — the largest in any country in the world — was also instrumental in uniting the people against the British,” he said.

In Oakland, California, authorities took advantage of large buildings that had been constructed during the “City Beautiful” movement. They converted the Municipal Auditorium, including its art gallery (a precursor to what is now the Oakland Museum of California), into an 80-bed emergency hospital. Gallery director William “Dr Billy” Porter, a trained surgeon, saw his duties amended to include “bringing in the sick and removing the dead” and dispensing free medical advice to artists. Other museum directors were able to use their buildings for more mission-oriented activities.

Also read — Museums will get redefined in the new normal, says Bhujang Bobade

For example, Harold Madison, an ornithologist who ran the Park Museum in Providence, Rhode Island, worked with Rhode Island School of Design and the city’s public libraries to design programs that filled gaps in instruction during forced closures of the public school system. Museum staff offered emergency instructional activities and story-times for children on topics ranging from animal life to nature’s landscapes.

The late 20th century AIDS epidemic, raced humankind to develop treatments as medical researchers estimated that between eight and ten million people were living with HIV.

“The mortality rate was high, with gay men, African-Americans, and Latinos suffering disproportionately. Misinformation about how the disease was transmitted was rampant; discussions about safe sex and needle practices were highly controversial. People were suffering, stigmatised, isolated, and frightened. Political activists demanded government action,” the paper reads.

In 1991, the Center for Disease Control partnered with eight science museums and the American Medical Association to form the National AIDS Exhibition Consortium. The initial idea was to develop exhibitions on the science of AIDS as well as safe preventive practices that would reach a large general audience. This initiative coincided with a time that museums were beginning to tell the stories of people left out of the master narratives of history, art, and science. Science curators and educators chose to tell a more expansive story, one that would encourage compassion. The Consortium’s efforts—starting with the exhibition “What About AIDS” at the Franklin Institute—featured people of all genders, races, and backgrounds who were living with HIV and AIDS. The National AIDS Exhibition Consortium paved the way for subsequent public health exhibitions that integrated humanistic, social, political, personal, and even artistic themes with medical information and provide spaces for reflection and people to share their own stories.

Talking about Covid-19, the paper states, as museums around the world have temporarily shut their doors in response to public health calls for physical distancing, many have rallied to develop new ways to keep museums accessible.

“These have focused on online exhibitions, tours, and other creative strategies to keep audiences engaged, entertained, and inspired—or ease anxious minds with their most calming art. Such initiatives are admirable, even crucial, during this unprecedented social upheaval. But we would argue there is an opportunity for museums to go deeper, rather than shrinking into a status quo ante where only “highlights” and permanent exhibits go online. Just as the pandemic is laying bare stark global and national inequalities, museums must recognise that they themselves are woven into a social fabric that is proving to be woefully frayed,” it said.

Bobade urged museums to view the current ‘state of exception’ not only as a constraint (which it obviously is) but as a moment to experiment. For instance, museums could offer design software that allows exhibitions to be re-curated on a web platform, or re-captioned with new interpretive texts. Imagined shows could be curated whole cloth by aspiring curators, museum critics, students, and community groups.

This is also a moment to consider just how accessible museums actually are to a full range of citizens (and non-citizens) in various national contexts, in either digital or analogue form. In the future, when we look back on how museums handled Covid-19, hopefully, we can take pride that once again, our Museum field was responsible, creative, and empathetic in a time when everyone could use a good old-fashioned dose of perspective, he added.