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The gallery will raise its national and international profiles with a major social media campaign and digital content subscriptions
Lauren Heath-Jones | Planet Attractions | 07 May 2021
The National Gallery celebrates its 200th anniversary in 2024 Credit: Lucia Hatalova
London’s National Gallery has revealed a five-year strategic plan to raise its national and international profiles in anticipation of the historic institution’s 200th anniversary in 2024.
Titled ‘The National Gallery at 200: For the Nation - For the World’, the plan will see the gallery launch a major social media campaign alongside a push to gain digital content subscriptions. The gallery will also establish a series of regional tours, with parts of its collection set to travel around the UK.
The plan recognises the “unprecedented difficulties” of the past 12 months, which saw the gallery lose £14m (US$19.5m, €16.2m) in self-generated income after it was forced to close due to UK lockdown measures.
“The next five years will see us fighting our way out of the crisis, building on our strengths, responding to challenges and opportunities and forging a pathway to the National Gallery of the future,” said National Gallery director, Dr Gabriele Finaldi.
Embracing online audiences
During the first UK lockdown in spring 2020, the gallery embraced online audiences, hosting a series of free and ticketed digital events. The strategic plan aims to transform the gallery - which welcomed more than six million physical visitors in 2019 - into a “digital media organisation that can potentially reach hundreds of millions of people across the world”.
In autumn 2020 the gallery once again moved its offering online with a paid on-demand video tour of the hotly-anticipated Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition, which was forced to close due to the second UK lockdown.
Streaming service
The gallery also aspires to “build a membership business anchored in digital content” by adopting a subscription model, similar to that recently implemented by London’s National Theatre, inspired by popular streaming services such as Netflix and Disney Plus.
Content will include documentary-style films, live and interactive online events and educational video-based courses, exclusive to subscribers.
In addition, the National Gallery has announced a comprehensive social media strategy, including the launch of TikTok and Snapchat accounts, to attract a “radically bigger digital audience”.This follows the news that a recently launched TikTik account has helped to attract younger visitors to the Uffizi Galleries in Italy.
Other plans include the launch of a learning service aimed at children and young people across the UK, as well as a programme that will fund the conservation of artworks in regional museum collections.
The gallery is also planning community tours of some of its artworks to cultural venues across the country.
NG200
The strategy will also see the implementation of NG200, a £30m (US$42m, €34m) renovation project that will see the improvement of the “underwhelming” visitor facilities in the Sainsbury Wing and the gallery’s outdoor spaces, as well as the addition of a new research centre.
Aiming to be completed by the gallery’s bicentenary, the new research centre has been described as a “physical and digital entity”, and will make the study of art history and conservation science accessible to academics, students and young people alike.
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