Story at a glance
- The Smithsonian Institution’s museums in Washington, D.C., are closed to visitors during the coronavirus pandemic.
- Now, museums are using their online platforms to share their collections and resources with the public.
- National Portrait Gallery Director Kim Sajet spoke about what she’s been working on during the lockdown.
Right now, the halls of the National Portrait Gallery are empty, save for the people frozen in the frames on the walls. The museum is closed to visitors due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but Kim Sajet, director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, is at work.
“The world is our oyster,” Sajet said in an interview with The Hill’s editor-at-large Steve Clemons for the Coronavirus Report.
The first woman to serve as director of the museum, Sajet shoulders the responsibility of carrying its legacy into a new era. Anyone who with internet access is now part of their audience, she said, so the museum has been expanding its virtual resources.
“There are a lot of people at home becoming teachers and teaching kids at home and setting up classrooms in their kitchens and living rooms,” Sajet said.
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There’s story time for children at 11 a.m. on Wednesdays and class with an artist at 11 a.m. on Fridays. In addition to the eight exhibitions, there are lesson plans and other educational resources, some of which are available in Spanish and American Sign Language (ASL).
“We need to be thinking about the on-site experience, but we more and more need to be thinking about the online experience,” Sajet said. “Now, the online experience has to be different, and it has to be additive, you know. You can’t replace what it’s like to look at a real work of art, but you can do it in a very different and engaging way.”
One of Sajet’s biggest dreams, she said, is to set up “portrait productions” with a videographer and other communications specialists. The museum also has a podcast that is heading into its second season that explores the individuals behind each portrait. Sajet’s favorite, she said, is one on Sojourner Truth.
“What I had not realized until we had talked to our senior historian, Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, is that in her lap she’s holding knitting, but she’s actually made the yarn look like the map of the United States. So, here was a woman who was once enslaved, who couldn’t read or write, but she controlled her own image and she loved America dearly. And I think that, to me, is, it’s a portrait of resilience and hope and ingenuity, and it’s just sort of a fascinating story. So, that’s the one I’m in love with right now,” she said. “But ask me in two hours and I’ll have a different portrait.”
The walls of the portrait gallery are decorated with people from all eras of history leading up to the present. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is in one, as part of a group portrait completed a few years ago. Bill and Melinda Gates and Jose Andres, who have been major charitable figures throughout the pandemic, are also in the collection.
“I think [during] pandemics and any major disasters we also think about the people who made a difference in our lives. And we realized at the end of the day we’re more alike than we are different, and that what matters is communication, empathy, community, sharing, being part of the solution, not the problem,” Sajet said.
The criteria for whom becomes the subject of portraits has changed since early in America’s history, when it was a very elite art form. With the advent of cameras, portraits became more accessible and also more personal. So who will be the subject of the portraits and art from the coronavirus pandemic?
“I think what I’m impressed with is just sort of this focus on families, the people around us, maybe less about celebrity in some way and more about those who we’ve spent a lot of time with,” Sajet said. “But also the people on the front lines, right? The doctors, the nurses, the cleaners, the people stocking our shelves. I mean, they’re the heroes really of this whole situation.”
BREAKING NEWS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
WHO: THERE’S NO EVIDENCE WEARING A MASK WILL PROTECT YOU FROM CORONAVIRUS
FAUCI PREDICTS ANOTHER CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK IN THE FALL WITH A ‘VERY DIFFERENT’ OUTCOME
MORE THAN 1000 TEST POSITIVE FOR CORONAVIRUS AT TYSON MEAT PLANT THE DAY IT REOPENS
TEXAS REPORTS SINGLE-DAY HIGH IN CORONAVIRUS DEATHS TWO WEEKS AFTER REOPENING
Published on May 28,2020