Polish museums during the COVID-19 pandemic: Online activity and (non)application of Rapid Response Collecting

The subject of this article is Rapid Response Collecting (RRC) as one of the ways in which museums can operate in exceptional situations. Between 2020 and 2021, in Poland and all over the world, curators resorted to RRC in order to document – in live dialogue with society – the pandemic and social protests. The subject of RRC is barely present in the subject literature. This article gathers English-language scholarly literature from the USA and various European countries, and it analyzes cases of applying RRC in Polish museums during the COVID-19 epidemic. From the pandemic’s first weeks, numerous journalistic pieces (and sometime scholarly ones too) – about online activities of museums and other institutions have been published. Internet activities are seen as the first, most obvious, and even universal “cure” for all the difficulties of times of plague. The aim of this article is to present another way in which museums can react to dynamic changes in the surrounding world. In this article, RRC is also presented in the context of transformations taking place in the theory and practice of museum studies in the last few decades. The application of RRC is part of museum activity implemented according to the latest international definitions of a museum, both those in operation and those recommended

The subject of this article is Rapid Response Collecting (RRC) as one of the ways in which museums can operate in exceptional situations. Between 2020 and 2021, in Poland and all over the world, curators resorted to RRC in order to document – in live dialogue with society – the pandemic and social protests. The subject of RRC is barely present in the subject literature. This article gathers English-language scholarly literature from the USA and various European countries, and it analyzes cases of applying RRC in Polish museums during the COVID-19 epidemic. From the pandemic’s first weeks, numerous journalistic pieces (and sometime scholarly ones too) – about online activities of museums and other institutions have been published. Internet activities are seen as the first, most obvious, and even universal “cure” for all the difficulties of times of plague. The aim of this article is to present another way in which museums can react to dynamic changes in the surrounding world. In this article, RRC is also presented in the context of transformations taking place in the theory and practice of museum studies in the last few decades. The application of RRC is part of museum activity implemented according to the latest international definitions of a museum, both those in operation and those recommended