Top Left: Exhibition 2019 at TOP Museum in Tokyo, Japan. © Yukari Takahashi - Asahi Shimbun; Top Right: Exhibition 2019 at Muza – Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. © Jerzy Brinkhof; Bottom Left: Exhibition 2019 at Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, Italy. © Babette Warendorf; Bottom Right: Exhibition 2018 at the National Public Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Algiers, Algeria. © Babette Warendorf.
Alejandra de la Paz, director of the
Museo Franz Mayer in Mexico City, which has been partnering with World Press Photo since 1999, says: “
Through our temporary exhibition programs we enrich our core mission incorporating design, architecture and photography and linking the relevant contemporary issues to our historic collections.”
“World Press Photo has enabled the museum to reach a diverse and wider audience, especially young adults, and nontraditional museum goers, which has enriched us enormously. It is one of our most visited exhibitions and we create a very dynamic academic and educational program around World Press Photo that has a wide impact,” she adds.
Museums and cultural organizations through the COVID-19 crisis
Today, the global community is facing an unprecedented situation as the COVID-19 crisis continues its impact around the globe.
UNESCO estimates that 90% of the world’s approximately 60,000 museums are facing full, partial or eventual closure. “Regardless of size, location or status, museums are facing tough challenges, including protecting their collections, ensuring that staff are safe and healthy, dealing with financial issues, and staying engaged with their public,” UNESCO states in
this article.
“As a nonprofit, private museum that does not receive public funding, we rely on admissions and rentals for events for an important percentage of our annual budget. A deficit in that area will have an impact in terms of our future programs and activities that will be reduced,” says Alejandra de la Paz.
The potential of museums to create meaningful experiences for peoples of all origins and backgrounds is central to their social value. “Museums are more than just places where humanity’s heritage is preserved and promoted”, noted Ernesto Ottone R., Assistant Director-General for Culture of UNESCO. “They are also key spaces of education, inspiration and dialogue.”
The current crisis has also affected the World Press Photo Foundation and its exhibition partners, with locations of our Exhibition 2020 worldwide tour being cancelled or postponed. Every year, the annual World Press Photo Exhibition premieres in De Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, before starting its worldwide tour. This year, the
Flagship Exhibition 2020 was postponed and will open on 1 June.
Special measures, such as floor marking, adjustment of the exhibition route to maintain 1.5 m distance between visitors, and automatic sanitizer stations have been put in place.
As governments in some countries start to ease measures and allow public spaces to reopen with certain rules, more locations of our World Press Photo Exhibition 2020 tour will be able to open in the coming months, while others have been postponed to later in the year.
Check our calendar to see all dates.