On 18 May this year, the museums of the city and the surrounding municipalities celebrate their big day, International Museum Day, a celebration which, this year, for the first time in the last five years, coincides on the calendar with the Night of the Museums, the celebration that keeps the doors of the museums open until the early hours of the morning. Day or night… everyone to the museum!

This year a total of 87 metropolitan museum spaces, including some notable additions, will be celebrating La Nit dels Museus, which will keep the doors open between 7 p.m. and 1 a.m. for anyone who wants to see the exhibitions or the permanent collections or take part in one of the many activities being organised. Everything is announced with a poster (the one in the picture) by the Barcelona artist Martina Manyà, which, made up of fragments, reflects the diversity of what is on offer during La Nit dels Museus.

Museums in Barcelona (but also in Badalona, Cornellà, Esplugues, l’Hospitalet, Sant Adrià, Sant Joan Despí and Santa Coloma) will offer a total of 171 proposals. Both these activities and access to the museum during the open days will be free, although in some cases (which will be indicated on the website) registration will be required from 30 April.

Among the new additions in Barcelona, the Sala Barcelona, which has just opened a few months ago, the Terra Museum, a space dedicated to rural life with an intense activity, the recovered Martorell Exhibition Centre of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona, the Museum of Forbidden Art and the Sínia Occupational Centre of the Roman Wall. This year’s edition is not the one with the highest number of participants (the record is 90 teams involved), but almost.

In all or almost all of these spaces you can make a free visit, to see exhibitions, museum collections or simply the buildings where these facilities are installed. For example, you can go up to the Torre Glòries viewpoint, enjoy a splendid view of the city and visit an exhibition on Europe’s urban ecosystems. Do you prefer history? Then at the MUHBA Plaça del Rei you can visit the exhibitions “Barcelona flashback, a historical synthesis”, “Bàrcino and Barcinona, the Roman and early medieval city” and the Palau Reial Major de Barcelona. The exhibitions “Joan Brossa. La sensació mental d’una felicitat completa” and the temporary exhibitions “Carles Santos. I ara què” and “Les planàries i les tènies”, by Jose Begega (curated by Ona Balló), which you will find at the Centre de les Arts Lliures – Fundació Joan Brossa. 

“Why the war?”, is the question being asked these days at the Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria. Here you have a trio of contemporary art works that ask about war and its consequences. You will find exhibitions about the environment and the crisis caused by drought at the Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona – Parc del Fòrum. But… have you seen the Moco Museum? Well, perhaps this museum festival is a good opportunity to see the works of great contemporary artists (Banksy, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Damien Hirst) that are preserved there.

As well as visiting the city’s exhibition centres and museums, during La Nit dels Museus many venues organise proposals of all kinds: from dramatised visits to workshops, concerts, recitals, performances and many other proposals.

Want an example? At the Museu de les Arts Escèniques de l’Institut del Teatre, they have recovered a series of puppets by Harry Vernon Tozer, a famous Paraguayan puppeteer of English parentage who lived in Barcelona from 1925 and who, among other things, discovered and popularised the Catalan puppet or putxinel-li around the world. The puppets from his collection are now used to perform an enticing show: La mongetera màgica. The same space teaches the youngest children how to make their own puppets and offers dance workshops.

Other venues, such as Santa Mònica, on the Rambla, organise various activities under the generic title Les Mòniques en obert. Among these “Mòniques”, there will be a marathon performance lasting seven hours, 1518/840. Transitar l’invisible.
A video-mapping show at the Maritime Museum of Barcelona, a game that invites you to look for hidden owls among the Collection of Funeral Carriages; an “Ephemeral Museum” and a drawing session with a model at the Artistic Circle of Sant Lluc or a Saturday evening of Latin jazz at the Photographic Archive of Barcelona are just some of the many other activities planned.

If you want to visit a museum outside the usual opening hours and take part in one of the many activities organised during La Nit dels Museus, check the website of this initiative and plan your own night-time itinerary.

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