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L.A.'s top museums may occasionally compete for prestige and visitors, but the inter-museum love was strong Thursday as a dozen of L.A.'s most prestigous institutions "swapped" Instagram accounts Thursday for a very public summer fling.
"We hope #LAInstaFling will bring attention to the inspirational themes shared by museums all around Los Angeles, and bring a sense of community to museum visitors across the city," said Alex Capriotti, President of SoCal Museums and Director of Marketing and Communications at The Broad.
The day-long regional collaboration, dubbed #LAInstaFling for those who'd like to follow along, was organized by SoCal Museums and inspired by previous #MuseumInstaSwap campaigns in London and New York.
What makes #LAInstaFling particularly cool is the fresh perspective it offers on some of L.A.'s best-known cultural institutions. Instead of swapping actual accounts, each of the participating museums has spent the day posting about another museum through their own unique lens. The Natural History Museum's Instagram posts about the Skirball Museum highlight not just the fantastic indoor exhibits, but also a bee that was spotted pollinating an outdoor garden.
The Instagram collaboration creates space for an individual show at a single museum to contextualized more broadly within the city's exhibition history. When, for instance, the Hammer Museum posts about the Broad's Cindy Sherman show, we #LAInstaFling followers learn which works have previously appeared at the Hammer, and what series they fit into.
The twelve participating institutions include cover art, cultural heritage, natural history, and science, and Capriotti told LAist that the takeover selections were random, with names chosen out of a hat.
"We're a community here, so we thought instead of us each trading with each other [in pairs], why don't we make it a whole mix," Rachel Gertz of the Natural History Museum told LAist.
According to Gertz, the the #LAInstaFling name was a play on the idea of summer love. Gertz described the relationship between L.A.'s many museums as very collaborative.
Meanwhile, over on LACMA's Instagram page, the Hammer Museum is getting some love for their Made In L.A. exhibition:
And the fun goes on:
Check out #LAInstaFling on Twitter and Instagram to see all the posts.
