At the current height of the global COVID-19 pandemic, when most people have been ordered to stay at home as often as possible, avoid gatherings larger than 10 people, and remain at least six feet away from others at all times, museums—where everyone is more or less expected to observe artwork while standing next to countless others in potentially crowded spaces—have naturally been one of the hardest hit businesses worldwide.

The Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) and Hawai‘i State Art Museum (HiSAM) are two of the biggest art museums on O‘ahu and both closed their doors for more than four months earlier this year, from mid-March to mid-July and again in August and September. They reopened in the time between O‘ahu’s first and second shutdown and will open again (coronavirus willing), thanks to preventative measures by diligent staff, necessary cost-cutting, and the continued support of members and patrons. But what will these iconic museums look like in a post-COVID world, and what exhibitions are currently available to view?

“This has definitely a learning process,” says Karen Ewald, director of HiSAM and the Hawai‘i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts’ Art in Public Places program, which preserves and publicly displays works of art relating to Hawai‘i or its culture. In response to the lockdown earlier this summer, Ewald and her team at HiSAM shifted their focus from attract- ing visitors to the physical museum itself to instead enjoying experiences digitally, through workshops, concerts and exhibitions via social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and Zoom. “It’s a series we’re calling ‘HiSAM From Home, where we’re hiring local artists to host free demonstrations or teach lessons online,” Ewald says. “Digital events have been a way for us to engage the community in a different way, especially when our doors were closed.”

A few months ago, HiSAM hosted a virtual summer camp for Hawai‘i’s youth as a way to support teachers and parents who were trying to figure out ways to keep children engaged during quarantine. At “camp,” kids learned dance, acting, painting and how to make pop-up sculptures taught by talented instructors, including artist Meleanna Meyer, musician James McCarthy and performer Mimi Wisnosky. Instead of gathering guests on the front lawn at the Capitol District Building for live music on the first Friday of each month, audiences are able to gather on the living room couch to live-stream concerts hosted by local musicians, such as singer-songwriter Keilana and jazz saxophonist Jabari Prevost. Other HiSAM events—such as Pecha Kucha, where guests present 20 slides for 20 seconds each and speak about various subjects—are easy to watch on social media, and no longer require ei- ther microphone or projector.

In the spirit of looking inward and reassessing, HiSAM also debuted a new show when the museum’s doors reopened in July: Mai ho‘ohuli i ka lima i luna, an exhibition of Hawaiian works from the Art in Public Places collection selected by guest curators Drew Broderick, Ka‘ili Chun and Kapulani Landgraf. With pieces that range from traditional painting and printmaking, to kapa weavings and stone carvings, to sculptures made from wood and post-consumer waste alike, the exhibit is a meditation on the Hawai‘i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts itself: What does it mean to preserve, promote and perpetuate culture and the arts in Hawai‘i today?

For the next few months, part of it means masks, hand sanitizer stations, temperature checks and plexiglass protective shields, which HiSAM is employing to keep visitors safe. The interactive I Love Art Gallery and museum shop is temporarily closed, but Artizen Cafe is open. “I know things are a little crazy these days. But hopefully coming to HiSAM can be a little break from the madness,” says Ewald. “We’re free to visit in person or online, we still have events slated online through 2021, and we want to engage in the community. HiSAM is open and it’s safe.”

Similar precautions are being taken at the Honolulu Museum of Art, which, in recent months, has also spearheaded efforts to digitize not only events, but the experience of visiting the museum itself through a #MuseumFromHome initiative. “While the [Honolulu] Museum was closed, we worked to stay connected with the community by regularly posting quick tours of our galleries and videos about making art on social media,” says Honolulu Museum of Art Director of Learning and Engagement Aaron Padilla. “When it came time to reopen in July, we didn’t want to lose that digital companion, especially considering that museum visits in the near future will be more individualized.”

As part of a new “gallery activation project,” guests at the Honolulu Museum will find assorted QR codes that can be scanned by smartphone to bring up different web pages with additional info about various exhibition items. This could be a video of a museum instructor dem- onstrating how a piece of art is made, or snippets from interviews with an artist or scholar about the context behind a work of art. “One of our docents gave a tour earlier this year and explained how he actually knew the real-life woman whose portrait was in one of our galleries and
he talked about her,” says Padilla. “With this new initiative, we’re able to capture knowledge like this and offer it in an accessible format for years to come.”

In less than a month before reopening this past July, Padilla’s team was able to add digital content, in the form of videos, audio clips, and short articles, to 10 galleries at the museum; their goal is eventually to reach all 29 galleries, as well as to provide similar programming for the museum’s live events, such as Art After Dark. Meanwhile, for in-person visits, the museum has limited its open days to Thursdays through Sundays, though they’re open two hours later on Thursday and Sunday (to 6 p.m.) and five hours later (to 9 p.m.) on Friday and Saturday. Currently on display are exhibitions including Presence: African American Artists from the Museum’s Collection, featuring works across media by Black artists (through Novem- ber 15); Hokusai’s Mt. Fuji, an in-depth look at Katsushika Hokusai’s ukiyo-e Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji print series (through February 21, 2021); and Optical Impact, showcasing intriguing visual illusions through mid-century works from the Honolulu Museum’s collection (no end date announced yet).

“These new gallery features and digital resources are projects we should’ve been working towards all along, and when this pandemic comes to pass, it’s something we’re still going to offer,” says Padilla. “Museums need to be a window and a mirror. We need to see ourselves in the works before us, then we need to look out a proverbial window together at what could be. COVID continues to present challenges but, with the right eyes, it offers opportunities too.”

Hawai‘i State Art Museum (HiSAM) is located on the 2nd floor of No. 1 Capitol District Building (808) 586-9959, hisam.hawaii.gov; Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) is located at 900 Beretaina St., (808) 532-8700, honolulumuseum.org.