How virtual exhibitions impact our mental health in a positive way

Spending a few minutes looking at digital artworks could be enough to help us feel better, according to a European study. Photo: AFP

Visiting an art museum can have a multitude of health benefits. But what about virtual exhibitions?

A team of European researchers recently studied their therapeutic virtues and found that they could be on par with those of real-world art experiences.

The idea of going to a museum for health benefits may sound surprising, but it is a concept that’s gaining ground – and for good reason. Numerous scientific publications have highlighted the multiple benefits of art on our physical and mental wellbeing. Contact with works of art can help relieve chronic pain and alleviate stress and anxiety.

However, scientists did not know if these effects could also be experienced via the Internet.

MacKenzie Trupp and Matthew Pelowski set out to investigate this question with the help of researchers from the Max Planck Institutes for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, and Psycholinguistics. They asked 84 participants to visit two exhibitions digitised by Google Arts and Culture – one on Monet and the other on Japanese culinary traditions – during the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the time, nearly 90% of the world’s museums closed their doors for a certain period of time, according to a Unesco report from 2020. Millions of art lovers turned to virtual tours to access culture and to escape their everyday realities.

And good for them, suggests the study by Trupp and Pelowski. The researchers observed that people who visited a virtual exhibition saw their mood improve.

“This included lowered state-anxiety, negative mood, loneliness, and increased subjective wellbeing,” they wrote in the study, recently published in the journal, Frontier Psychology.

Even more surprisingly, these therapeutic effects are felt very quickly. The psychologists noted that looking at digital artworks for a few minutes is enough to make you feel better. The benefits of virtual exhibitions are even more pronounced if the people who visit them have a particular attachment to the art, or find it beautiful.

While the study has a small number of participants, it suggests new possibilities for art therapy. In the future, virtual exhibitions could be displayed in waiting rooms, hospitals and rural areas where access to art is limited. This would allow as many people as possible to reap the health benefits of art. – AFP