A visitor takes a selfie at the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City on August 12, 2020 as museums, cinemas and pools are resuming in Mexico as part of the easing of restrictions amid the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic. (AFP/Alfredo Estrella).
Mexico is resuming museums and cinemas in the capital after months of lockdown, however face masks and social distancing are the brand-new regular for culture vultures in a city still fighting the coronavirus.
At the renowned Soumaya Museum, security guards wearing face shields and gloves supervise mask-wearing visitors snapping selfies with artworks and roaming the near-empty corridors.
The museum, with a curving facade motivated by Auguste Rodin’s sculptures, houses more than 60,000 pieces of art including works by Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh.
Visitors to the tourist attraction, established by Mexican mogul Carlos Slim, must use a mask and have their temperature checked prior to getting in.
Fewer than 200 people entered its doors on the first day after reopening, compared with around 2,000 prior to the pandemic, a museum worker said.
Those who did make the go to invited the chance to get away from the dullness of self-confinement.
” Now you can have the opportunity to balance your emotions a bit and feel much safer and happier,” said Maria Elena Diaz, a 33- year-old psychologist.
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Patricia Velazquez, a 51- year-old public sector worker, stated she felt “a bit trapped” under her face mask, but mored than happy to be immersed in art once again.
For those who can not exist in person, the museum likewise offers virtual tours, its director Alfonso Miranda said.
At the freshly decontaminated Cineteca Nacional, popular with aficionados of art house and foreign motion pictures, most of the seats were marked as booked to guarantee social distancing.
Indications on the flooring reminded users to keep a healthy range, while the message “Welcome. Cineteca Nacional misses you” appeared on-screen.
” We were closed for five months. Now we’re going to return with 30 percent tenancy. Only 120 individuals will be able to get in a large space for 400 individuals,” said manager Ricardo Avila.
Like elsewhere in the city, temperature checks, antibacterial gel and face masks are de rigueur as authorities try to prevent the spread of a virus that has claimed nearly 55,000 lives throughout the country.
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Jakarta Post.
