Cape Town Museum offers online access to collections, exhibitions

On Tuesday, 14 June 2022, the Museum Service of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport launched Cape Town Digital – the new website for the Cape Town Museum.

The Cape Town Museum is modeled on the idea of a “museum without walls”. The website offers people the opportunity to access exhibitions and collections, including oral history collections from various communities in Cape Town. These collections will be updated on a continuous basis.  In addition to the website, the museum also has three sites under development:

• a walk-in-centre at 148 Long Street, in the Cape Town city centre.
• a Memory centre at the Cape Medical Museum, at the Old City Hospital Complex in Green Point.
• an exhibition on the Legacy of Slavery at Leeuwenhof Slave Quarters which is open to the public by appointment on the first Saturday of the month.

The museum is dependant on partnerships and collaborations and encourages stakeholders and members of the public to give their inputs on what they would like to see being included in the collections.

Head of Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport, Guy Redman, said at the launch: “This is a very exciting time that we are in, where we use digital platforms for museum collections. We want the Cape Town Museum to create a space for communities to own and to tell their stories in their own voice.”

Minister of Cultural Affairs and Sport, Anroux Marais, said: “I am happy to have the museum as an online platform so that we can reach so many more people and so that we make the information accessible to those who might not be able to travel to visit a physical museum. The Cape Town museum will also be a museum that listens to the people and will take inputs from communities when planning content. This means that the online space will reflect inputs from all the people of the area and will be a true community space.”

The Cape Town Museum website can be accessed at: https://www.capetownmuseum.org.za/