Portuguese museums in pandemic times: change and adaptation through heritage-based artist-in-residence programming

Commissioned by the Portuguese Government, the November 2020 field report, Museus no Futuro (“Museums in the Future”), mentions the programming of co-curated artist-in-residence programmes as one of the recommendations for engaging local publics, particularly younger visitors. This recommendation seems of special relevance in the aftermath of extensive lockdowns due to the COVD-19 pandemic, and in the face of an increasingly bleak scenario concerning the recovery of international tourism. Drawing on the analysis of the preliminary results derived from the doctoral project “(Re)creating Heritage”, an inquiry into heritage-based artist-in-residence programming practices in Portugal over the last decade, the article at hand will specifically focus on three artist-in-residence programmes hosted by Portuguese museums located in some of the regions hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. By doing so, we aim to promote the discussion of the potential of artist-in-residence programmes for improving resilience and participation at a local level in (post-) pandemic times.