Hashtags of Art

Brazil ranks second worldwide in social media usage, with an average of 3 hours and 56 minutes per day. But the country is far from the top when it comes to spending time at art exhibitions: only 7,5% of Brazilians have the habit of going to museums.
So, how could the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes draw attention to the oldest art collection in Rio de Janeiro, which has been on display for the last 82 years? By bringing the social media world and art together. The' Hashtags of Art' is an exhibition that literally placed hashtags under secular paintings, so people could feel as close to art as they are to their internet friends.
By using fun and popular hashtags that were always based on the history and context of the artworks, we made an audience that wasn't interested in art start to truly relate and connect to it. And we showed, for instance, that a 19th-century painting of Brazilian Monarch Dom João VI wearing a gold-embroidered mantle before his coronation is nothing more than #outfitoftheday, #likeaboss, #instaluxury, and that food still life paintings are actually a good example of #instafood, #foodiary, #glutenfree among many other examples.
The exhibition was also taken to the museum's Instagram (instagram.com/mnbario/) where the captions explored the same hashtags that were placed under the real artworks. Overall the idea was to create a link between historical paintings and a contemporary digital behavior, showing that art and social media have more in common than people have ever imagined.