Pittsburgh By

We’re halfway through our @52museums takeover on Instagram, joining museums around the world in managing the account one week at a time. Created by Mar Dixon, and inspired by Chris Webb’s project 52Quilters, @52museums features one or several museums each week taking over the Instagram account throughout 2016. This week, all four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh—The Andy Warhol Museum, Carnegie Science Center, and Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History—are collaborating to take over week 28, July 11–17.

Instagram screen show with three images in a row: black and white photograph of crowd; walking man sculpture; black and white photograph of a man seated on the ground at a dig site.
Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh take over @52Museums on Instagram July 11–17, 2016.

We’re thrilled to be part of this international project and to collaborate as sister institutions. Though the last time we collaborated on a social media driven project, it was a friendly competition. In 2015, our museums entered into #CarnegieClash, pitting collection objects against each other in a bracket-style competition for the public to vote for its favorite. In the end, Pittsburgh’s beloved Dippy beat out Miniature Railroad & Village®, Vincent van Gogh’s Wheat Fields after the Rain, and Andy Warhol’s Silver Clouds.

For @52museums, we decided to engage a different theme each day. As four disparate museums with singular collections, it can sometimes be a challenge to decide on themes or ideas that work for all of us. But after a bit of back-and-forth, we decided to feature some of the most important things to all of us—our people, our spaces, our collections and objects, and, of course, our city.

So far, we’ve explored #CarnegieSpaces, #CarnegiePeople, #CarnegieObjects, and #CarnegieTBT. Follow us @52museums, and stay tuned for #CarnegieBackstage, #CarnegieAnimals (yes, there will be cats), and #CarnegiePittsburgh.

Let us know what you think and what you want to see more of!