Art from home: your guide on everything from virtual exhibitions to projects for kids

Included are activities that are great for kids (or adults with child-like dispositions), artist films to watch, virtual art projects that are made to be experienced from a screen, educational resources for when you feel like expanding your mind as well as voices to follow (including podcasts and newsletters to subscribe to).

Artist Films

Autograph: A Different Way of Seeing

Originally to be screened at their Shoreditch location, you can now view the film A Different Way of Seeing via Autograph’s website which features young artists with autism and a broad spectrum of learning disabilities, challenging how mainstream media represents people like them. Created in partnership with a youth media company that reworked the exhibition to be accessible online, watch and read an interview with Mouth That Roars to learn more.

Julia Stoschek Collection: Digital Collection

Wolfgang Tillmans, Peas, 2003, video still, 2′42″, color, sound. Courtesy of Julia Stoschek Collection.

Taking a lead in digital archiving, Julia Stoschek Collection has digitised their collection of noteworthy contemporary art, with over 860 works by more than 255 artists, including Marina Abramovic, Doug Aitken, Tracey Emin and Wolfgang Tillmans. There are already tons of video art and films that can be viewed from home or anywhere via their new online platform, with more to be uploaded over the coming months. Your hunger for contemporary time-based art has never been so satisfied.

Open Justice

ALTIPLANO, Malena Szlam, 15:30 min, 35mm, color, sound, 2018. Still.

A virtual exhibition of experimental films commissioned by academic, writer and artist Denise Ferreira da Silva, Open Justice documents various film practices from both emerging and established filmmakers from around the world, the films come together to circumvent a return to a violent norm, engaging in anti-colonial exercises to struggle against catastrophe.

Educational Resources

Art21: Watch

Mobile Studios: Zanele Muholi, Art21, 2019, film still.

The foundational television series on contemporary art that’s been documenting the work and lives of artists since 2001, Art21 brings mindful entertainment and education on the art of the 21st century through the voices of artists themselves. Get up close and personal with your favourite artists through beautifully made videos, including Zanele Muholi, Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, Olafur Eliasson and more.

The British Museum: Collection

Lewis Chessmen, 1150-1200

Newly launched in the midst of the pandemic, the revamp of the British Museum’s collection means you can peruse their entire collection across two million years with ease and in detail from anywhere in the world.

Future Learn: Creative Arts and Media Courses

Start your journey with creative writing, better understand the history of fashion or take your art research to the next level with these creative courses from Future Learn. Best of all, they’re free the enrol.

Met Publications

Detail from David Prepares the Attack Rabbah, cover of David and Bathsheba: Ten Early Sixteenth-Century Tapestries from the Cluny Museum in Paris

Five decades of Met Publications from the Metropolitan Museum of Art sees more than 500 books on art history available to be read online or downloaded for free. Browse through them all, or search for your topics of choice.

Online College of Art and Design

Pick up new creative skills from the UK’s most established online art course provider via their Youtube Channel. The Online College of Art and Design offers taster courses on everything you need to from beginner courses on drawing techniques to the various painting styles of famous artists, including Cezanne, Dali and Da Vinci.

Open Culture

Before we had Netflix, some of us would nerd out on this incredibly abundant platform that offers a seemingly endless supply of cultural and educational media. Although with less pizzazz and fash that their more modern counterparts, Open Culture's content remains unparalleled. Get free language lessons, indulge in over 1000 free films and get reacquainted with literature with tons of free audio and ebooks.

Wellcome Collection Works

Oil Painting by Frederick Cayley Robinson

Talk about open source: the Wellcome Collection offers thousands of free digital books, artworks, museum objects and more through their web portal, making their web platform an invaluable educational and research tool, or a portal through which you can easily spend hours of time.

Great for kids

Bad Drawing Club at South London Gallery

Who gets to say what's a bad drawing? Anyone and everyone! Every Thursday, the South London Gallery invites you to participate in artist Millie Nice’s Bad Drawing Club online by submitting your drawings on Instagram using the hashtag #BadDrawingClubUK.

Creative Projects at Home with Artists in Residence

With schools closed, Artists in Residence had to pause their high-quality residencies programmes in schools across the UK. They’re instead providing a collection of resources for those who want to teach kids art from home. Included in their Creative Projects at Home are digital art projects, art projects designed for art teachers and artists as well as projects to do in your garden.

Family Activities at Ikon Gallery

Ikon Activity Pack KS1 Cover Photo

Join in for Family Saturdays at Ikon Gallery virtually, try out art activities at home or learn about contemporary art through creative projects to exercise your kids’ creativity. And once you’re done making art from home, take a stroll through Ikon Gallery’s current exhibitions with John Newling and Judy Watson, available to be seen online.

Ghibli films on Netflix

Spirited Away

Indulge in some seriously stylistic pastimes with the pioneering Japanese animation studio behind some of the most beloved cartoons in the world, including Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro. More than 20 films from Studio Ghibli are now available to be seen on Netflix in several countries around the world.

Monday Makes at Dundee Contemporary Arts

Spud Bud for Monday Makes at Dundee Contemporary Arts with Learning and Print Studio Coordinator Scott Hudson

Monday Blues exacerbated by lockdown? Dundee Contemporary Arts is here to rescue you! Start your week off with creative activities that are fun for both adults and kids, and create some fabulous art using approaches you haven’t thought of before with Monday Makes. And if you’re feeling blue the rest of the week, the DCA’s online platform hosts things for you to do from home all week long, from film clubs to studio tours.

Yodomo: free online creative courses

Make a Simple Macrame Plant Hanger, Yodomo

Did you know that engaging in creative activities can help support mental wellbeing? Crafting can counteract the toll isolation takes on your psychology, and it’s what Yodomo is premised on. Offering a wide range of online creative courses from learning to draw by observation to making adorable sushi pom-poms, Yodomo’s online platform features instructors who are all experts in their field, and several of their courses are free. Try out a few with everyone in your family, including kids, or attend live webinars and order creative kits that come with everything you need to create something new.

Mindfulness

Bedtime Stories at New Museum

Maurizio Cattelan, Bedtime Stories, New Museum, 2020.

Is there anything cosier than being lulled to sleep by the sweet sound of someone lovingly reading aloud a passage from their favourite book? In a bid to foster more connectivity during this time of isolation, artist Maurizio Cattelan initiated Bedtime Stories as a digital project for New Museum wherein he invites friends, artists and performers to read something, either their own work, someone else’s or an impromptu performance. With a new instalment available each day, add this to your routine for some reliable company.

Lie Down and Listen

Join in for a peaceful ending to your week with Lie Down and Listen, now available live on Zoom. The classical music lying down concert series is curated by pianist Christina McMaster, along with guest instructors leading you through yoga and meditation. Every Friday at 7 pm, it's free to join.

Missing Sounds of New York by New York Public Library

Missing Sounds of New York: An Auditory Love Letter to New Yorkers by the New York Public Library Album Cover

Who would’ve thought the bustling noises of the city would be something we’d miss from our daily commutes? For New Yorkers, the New York Public Library has just the thing to alleviate that longing. Missing Sounds of New York: An Auditory Love Letter to New Yorkers is a collection of audio landscapes that lets you experience the sounds of the city without ever leaving your home.

Virtual Art

Kiasma Online Art

The Kiasma Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki offers a web extension of their collection, and it’s been keeping us entertained for hours. Their growing number of open-access web-based art projects include everything from video-games-as-art to sound art you can mix yourself to artist-created image editing software.

Museum of Broken Relationships

Have you ever noticed that the best songs, stories and works of art are all about the sorrowful and relatable experience of heartbreak? Maybe it’s because of how universal love and loss are, or maybe emotionally charged artwork have more flavour. Whatever the reason, the Museum of Broken Relationships centres on this by allowing you to treasure and share your heartbreak. Both hosted in various physical locations and as a virtual experience, the was originally conceived by Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić in 2006.

MoMA Virtual Views

Jesús Rafael Soto. Double Transparency. 1956. Oil on plexiglass and wood with metal rods and bolts,(55 × 55 × 32 cm). © 2020 Artists Rights Society (ARS), part of Sur moderno at MoMA.

Our feet are itching to step back into a museum, but several major cities have yet to reopen their doors to the public. Luckily, museums have taken the initiative to produce virtual tours so that your feet can rest while you enjoy the culture and sanctuary that museums provide. Every Thursday, join various staff members of the Museum of Modern Art for a guided virtual tour of their collections, exhibitions and premises, including their Sculpture Garden, an exclusive view of their exhibition Sur moderno and more.

The Museum of the World by the British Museum

You ain’t never seen history like this before. Made in partnership with the British Museum and Google Cultural Institute, the Museum of the World is an interactive virtual tour through various times, geographies and cultures that start with an explosion of dots and lead you through artefacts that paint a timeline of human history.

Net Art Anthology

Javier Morales, cover artwork for Nasty Nets (DVD), 2008.

Who knew the virus that would make net art suddenly so relevant wouldn’t be a computer virus? As we collectively spend more time on the internet searching for any relief from the monotony of isolation, the Net Art Anthology by Rhizome and New Museum provides 100 works of internet art from the 1980s to the 2010s, offering a wonderful mix of nostalgia and futurity that tells the story of how art on the web has progressed through the years.

To Berlin and Beyond: Virtual Exhibition

© ullstein bild – SPUTNIK / STF

Commemorate the end of World War Two on its 75th anniversary with this project created in collaboration with Kulturprojekte Berlin, the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst. Virtually visit significant sites across Berlin with this engaging exhibition that revisits this moment in 1945.

Voices to follow

ArtRabbit Pinterest

Need some aesthetic inspiration for revamping your setting now that you’re spending so much time in one place? Head to our Pinterest board, where we make pretty boards with pretty colourways of art in hopes of giving you that extra dash of creativity to help you pursue your own creative projects.

Barbican: Read, Watch & Listen

Basquiat at the Mudd Club in New York, 1979. Photo by Nicholas Taylor.

Typically a meeting point of the most interesting cultural events, lectures, festivals and exhibitions held within its concrete walls, the Barbican Centre also offers multimedia online experiences to consume. Listen to podcasts, watch videos and read feature articles about culture of all sorts, from hip hop playlists to things for kids to watch.

Brad Troemel: How to be an artist without attending art school

Thinking of spending thousands for a top-notch online art school where you don’t even get a studio space? No? Probably a good call. As MFA programmes are decreasing in popularity and attainability in this current climate, artist and polemicist Brad Troemel offers some valuable insight into what the art school experience is without having to go deeper into student debt. Whilst his full report “No Art School Degree? No Problem” is found behind a $5/month Patreon paywall, you can get snippets of it from his IGTV posts.

David Foster Wallace: This Is Water

Read This Is Water by the prolific American author of novels and short stories David Foster Wallace for a healthy serving of wisdom, wit and inspiration. Originating from his commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005, it’s the perfect read for any stage of adulthood.

Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast

This podcast hosted by Lucas Zwirner for David Zwirner touches on wide-ranging topics whilst engaging with well-known artists and creatives in conversation with each other.

Freud Museum London – Podcast

Routine is important at a time like this, and the ICA in London has provided the perfect thing to which to set your daily rhythm: a dose of culture in the form of interesting links, essays, videos and more, sent out every day at 10 am or available to view on their website. A fantastic way to start your day, it goes great with your morning coffee.

Jerry Gogosian Podcast

Via @jerrygogosian

What started off as a meme account on Instagram that gently mocked the art world with the observant eyes of an insider has grown to 70k+ followers and a podcast of casual phone conversations with some of the most well-known names in contemporary art, including Jerry Saltz, Chloe Wise and Helen Molesworth. Listen to the Jerry Gogosian podcast and get the opinions and insights of art world characters whom you may or may not agree with.

Longform Podcast

The Longform Podcast, co-founded by producer Aaron Lammer, interviews some of the most talented, prolific authors that move and shake culture, including art critic Jerry Saltz, tech reporter Taylor Lorenz and writer Jia Tolentino.

Louisiana Channel

Cecilie Bahnsen: Inside the Design Studio, Louisiana Channel, 2020, film still.

From the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark, the Louisiana Channel produces videos on art and culture that covers everything from fashion to literature and everything in between. Along with interviews with renowned contemporary artists, we also found brilliant videos featuring Danish fashion design powerhouse Cecilie Bahnsen and her flowy, feminine garbs as well as interviews with Irish author Sally Rooney, the genius behind the best selling novel turned Hulu hit series, Normal People.

Radiooooo

What did they listen to in Ukraine in 1910? What are they listening to in Mongolia now? What was the original soundtrack of the Titanic? Take a musical tour around the world and throughout the past century with Radiooooo, a project created by music lover friends that gives you a wholly new way of discovering music.

The Royal Institution: Christmas Lectures

Hannah Fry, the 2019 Christmas Lecturer. Photo by Paul Wilkinson.

How have plants and animals fought against each other in evolutionary history? What are the patterns and numbers that rule our everyday lives? Explore fascinating questions about science and life with the Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures that have been a staple in the community for more than half a century.

The National Gallery – Stories

Experience stories, both written and told via video, that are inspired by paintings from the National Gallery, including this Curated Look at Working from Home.

More art-related goodies to indulge in from home

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art offers online resources for learning and creativity.
• Boca Raton Museum of Art provides a series of free online programmes called Keep Kids Smart with ART.
• The Museum of Modern Art offers free online courses on art and more.
• Serpentine Galleries serves as digital space and platform for web art.
• Red Lines by artist Evan Roth is an artwork that is to be set up anywhere with an internet connection.