Drive-through exhibition attracts a new audience for art, and its theme – humankind’s relationship with nature – is timely amid the pandemic
- Rotterdam’s Ahoy Arena teamed up with the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen to present art visitors could drive past in electric cars, and show was a big success
- ‘You could think about visual festivals in the future … Maybe soundscapes could support them,’ says museum’s director. Berlin and China could host shows in 2021
Born of necessity in a world trying to cope with Covid-19, drive-through museum exhibitions could be coming to China in the new year.
“We are working towards licensing a travelling version of our drive-through exhibition for display in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen from as early as March,” says Sjarel Ex, director of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (MBVB), in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
The exhibition he’s referring to – the Boijmans Ahoy Drive-Thru Museum – was organised at short notice, and attracted 22,000 visitors, all safely isolated in their own electric vehicle, over the course of three weeks in August. Topically themed – probing humankind’s relationship with nature – the sell-out show was a collaboration between the museum and the Rotterdam Ahoy convention centre.
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the convention centre, which includes six exhibition halls and the 16,000-capacity Ahoy Arena. A busy schedule of trade shows, sporting events and concerts has been cancelled. Normally, such events would generate annual revenue in the region of €45 million (US$53 million) but income slumped to zero after March. Consequently, 40 per cent of the centre staff have been laid off.
The arena was planning to host the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest in May. That event alone was expected to attract 28,000 visitors and 1,500 journalists to Rotterdam. Instead of playing host to cheesy singers trying to avoid scoring “nul points”, though, a part of Rotterdam Ahoy was converted into a 128-bed temporary hospital for Covid-19 patients.