How Montreal's Museum of Fine Arts has attracted a broader visitor base

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is celebrating 20 years since coming up with a solution to a problem common to many institutions of its kind — what to do about the fact that most of its visitors were rich.

In 1999, the communications team combed through attendance statistics and confirmed that most visitors came "from a higher socio-economic level," to the surprise of no one, said educational program officer Marilyn Lajeunesse. 

So Lajeunesse got on the phone to community groups, literacy groups, schools — groups that might help diversify the museum's attendance records.

"We invited people who weren't coming to the museum," she said.

Lajeunesse has been involved in Sharing the Museum since the program's inception 20 years ago.

Now, about 500 groups participate, and some 230,000 individuals have benefited from it over the years.

The bulk of those visitors are children, community groups, people with mental or physical disabilities and people in precarious situations who might benefit from a retreat into the peaceful, alternative world of the museum.

Lajeunesse is particularly proud of the work being done with people who have mental health issues.

While patients have been visiting the museum through the Sharing the Museum program for years, in November 2018, a larger, pilot project began in Montreal where doctors could prescribe trips to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts as therapy.

"We know that art stimulates neural activity," said Nathalie Bondil, the museum's director general and chief curator.

"What we see is that the fact that you are in contact with culture, with art, can really help your well-being."