The National Historical Museum has made 500 paintings from its collection available online.
The website is an online repository open to the public. Visitors will find three previously unavailable collections: “Marinhas – De Martino,” “Retratos do Império,” and “Paisagens cariocas.” New items from other areas will be added in the coming months.
Despite all the ghosts haunting us, this is excellent news from the museum world to close the year.
I would highlight two aspects of the museum’s online collection that deserve attention. First, its alignment with current discussions about digital heritage—whether born digital or digitized, as this collection is.
The entire curatorial process was undertaken by the museum’s team, and each available item has around twenty individual pieces of information, such as technique, materials, a brief description, and production date. The images are also high-resolution, making it easier to see details that sometimes go unnoticed in the exhibition space.
Tainacan free software
The second very important point is that the repository uses free software, Tainacan, a downloadable plugin for WordPress, one of the most popular and versatile platforms.
Tainacan was developed by UFG (Federal University of Goiás) in partnership with the Ministry of Culture and Ibram (Brazilian Institute of Museums). It is cutting-edge public-policy research from UFG’s Media Lab, addressing the new demands of heritage and memory culture in the twenty-first century.
It also attests to the relevance of the public university, Ibram, and the Ministry of Culture, institutions all threatened in the name of supposed savings to the public purse.
Save memories, preserve culture, invest in public universities. These are my wishes for 2019 and always.
Transcript of Giselle Beiguelman’s Ouvir Imagens column, broadcast every Monday at 8 a.m. on Rádio USP (93.7).
This column is on recess until February.
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Image: Rendição da Corveta General Dorrego. Edoardo De Martino, 18–, MHN.