Page 289 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2015289a world reference for studying and enjoying medieval painting, and preserving them in their full splendour was both a necessity and a duty. They are a unique in that they introduced to the Iberian Peninsula the new form of artistic representation devised by Giotto and his follow- ers in Quattrocento Italy.The idea of this action was to involve peoplein preserving a unique heritage that belongs to society – heritage of and for everyone. The call for donations, launched through Verkami, ended in May 2013, by which time 30,875 euros had been raised – 5,000 more than requested.The contributions ranged from 20 to 2,000 euros, and a total of 224 donors collaborated. They all received perks such as guided visits to the chapel, limited edition prints and person- alised invitations to the preview after the chapel was restored.Another success story is the Museu Nacional d’art de Catalunya’s appeal for donations in 2013, for the acquisition of Mariano Fortuny’s drawing The Prayer from a private collector. The initiative was launched by the Friends of the MNAC Foundation.189 In this case, contrary to usual practice, it was not done through Verkami. This time the management set up a space on the museum’s own website and raised the 45,000 euros required with the help of 241 patrons. The contributions ranged from 10 to 3,000 euros.We also find success stories in more modest projects. The Museo Evaristo Valle in Gijón turned to crowdfunding to raise the money needed to publish the catalogue of the exhibi- tion El Greco en la Pintura de Evaristo Valle (ElGreco in the painting of Evaristo Valle) that opened in November 2014 as part of the events held all over Spain to commemorate the fourth centenary of the Cretan painter’s death.The 80-page catalogue, with a run of a thousand copies, cost 5,000 euros. The institution’s budget was unable to cover this, and the platform La Tahona Cultural190 was therefore used to launch the successful micropatronage campaign that raised 5,200 euros. Contributions ranged from 10 to 1,000 euros and donors were rewarded with free tickets and even with sets of cata- logues.5.2. CrowdcuratingOne of the first examples of a crowdcurated exhibition was Click!191 staged by the Brooklyn Museum in 2008.Click! was a photography exhibition that invited the whole museum’s audience (both the online community and the general public) to take part in the curatorial process. This exhibition was aimed at experimenting with the premise that a crowd can be just as wise at putting together and evaluating artistic content as a trained expert.The process was divided into three parts. The first was an open appeal for people to submit photographs on the subject of Changing Faces of Brooklyn via the Internet, adding a small comment on the photograph. The second step was to set up an online public forum to select the pieces for the exhibition. The last step was the opening of the exhibition on 27 June 2008 at the museum.5. Crowdfunding, crowdsourcing and crowdcurating