News

28-10-20
THE MUNTREF IMMIGRANTS’ HOTEL HEADQUARTERS REOPENS ITS DOORS ON OCTOBER 31

Visits must be booked in advance through the new app Museum View MUNTREF or by e-mail and will follow the protocol of the Argentine Network of Museums and Art Spaces established by the municipal and national governments.

After several months of remaining closed to the public due to the coronavirus pandemic, the MUNTREF Immigrants’ Hotel Headquarters reopens its doors on Saturday, October 31. Visitors must book in advance through the app Museum View MUNTREF (which can be downloaded from Google Playstore) or by writing to the e-mail visitasmuntref@untref.edu.ar

Visits will take place from Tuesday to Sunday between 12 p.m. and 6 p.m. At the Immigration Museum, the public will be able to appreciate the permanent exhibition For Men from All Parts of the World, whereas at the Contemporary Art Centre, there will be on display the exhibitions Diaries of the Soul by Italian artist Maria Lai, Collective Memory by the Argentine artist Carlota Beltrame, and The Photographic State by Chilean artist Julia Toro.

“Reopening MUNTREF in a face-to-face way is being able to offer again a sensory and thinking experience that is part of our purposes along with an approach to the art projects and the stories that come out of each exhibition. Without disregarding the required health measures, we are happy to be able to find the avenues to resume these actions,” MUNTREF’s art director, Diana Wechsler, stated.

All at once, Wechsler stressed the importance of digital tools and praised the virtual tours of #miramuntref, an initiative of the Museum to keep in touch with the community in the context of social isolation. 

“Despite the wealth of alternatives that have been uploaded to the virtual program, it will continue to grow and, in many cases, this will be a way of expanding the room experience. In this line is the work we are doing for the App MUNTREF which we are now launching. Through it we are not only able to organize the daily visit schedule but also to establish interactive actions between the exhibitions and the visitors”, she explained.

The application, which will soon be available for download from the Apple App Store, is intended as a tool for bringing MUNTREF closer to the wider public, allowing users to access general information about the Immigrants’ Hotel, its virtual tours, audio guides, media articles, videos, image gallery, multimedia content, and news alerts. Museum View MUNTREF also provides general information about and access to virtual tours of the other MUNTREF sites, and in the short term, new services will be made available that will seek to enhance interaction between users and the Museum.

Visits to the MUNTREF Immigrants’ Hotel Headquarters will be carried out abiding by the protocol developed by the Argentine Network of Museums and Art Spaces (RAME Red Argentina de Museos y Espacios de Arte) approved by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and the National Government. Some of the measures included in RAME’s protocol are the unavoidable use of face mask, temperature check at the entrance, the use of a sanitizing mat to disinfect shoes, the placement of hand sanitizer dispensers at different sections of the tour, and the establishment of one-way tours to avoid crowds and unexpected crossings among visitors. It also establishes that the occupation rate is 1 person every 15 m², that in each room there is a sign specifying the maximum capacity of visitors at once, that visits be individual (one person or a group of people living together not exceeding four), and that the interior doors remain open, so that they must not be handled, among other guidelines.

 

The other venues of MUNTREF will keep their virtual tours active

The other venues of MUNTREF; namely, the Museum of Visual Arts, the Centre for Art and Nature, and the Centre for Art and Science will keep in touch with their public through the virtual tours of the #miramuntref program, which are unique in the region.

Thanks to their 360º format, these tours allow visitors to get to know the spaces and the exhibitions as if they were doing it in person. Guillermo Suárez (UNTERF MEDIA System, Web, and Applications department—SWAP—Coordinator) explained that “a 360° camera is used which allows the whole space to be captured in a single photo, as well as a software designed to generate the immersive and interactive experiences, all together bringing the virt

In parallel, Diana Wechsler recalled that these virtual tours began to be worked on collaboratively with the University’s Content Creation Department (UNTREF Media) more than a decade ago, far away from the current scenario and with the idea of generating another possible way of visiting the museum and living a cultural experience.

“This does not mean denying the irreplaceable experience of an in-person contact, but it allows us to work on other levels, as it represents a type of diverse cultural experience that facilitates the access to increasingly larger portions of the population”, she concluded.