Art and creativity

Age Friendly Cheshire West Creative Kindness project: create an original A5 piece of artwork that includes a rainbow, a butterfly and positive message that can be shared with older members of the community
Cultural First Aid Kit: provides 30 creative and fun activities / workshops that can be completed in the comfort of your own home, in hospital or care homes. The activities have been created by artists, musicians and therapists for people to carry out themselves or with family and friends
Firstsite Gallery (Art is where the home is): free art activity packs created by UK artists including Antony Gormley, Sarah Lucas, Gillian Wearing, Idris Khan, Richard Wentworth, Cornelia Parker, Jeremy Deller, Vanley Burke, Mark Wallinger and more
West Cheshire Museums: new family and adult activities available making the collections accessible on-line whilst they can’t be enjoyed in person. Activities range from crochet patterns to cut and colour fashion dolls
NAPA art activities: for those who are looking for new creative projects, the National Activity Providers Association has a wide range of art resources and activities available for free

Films

The BFI Free collection: The British Film Institute (BFI) has a large archive collection of free films available including shorts, historical, international, home video, feature films and more

Music

Spotify - webplayer: digital music and podcast service that gives you access to millions of songs and other content. Basic functions such as playing music are totally free (although there will be adverts every 30 mins). The Spotify app can be downloaded free from the App Store or Google Play. Once downloaded you will need to create an account.
BBC Music Memories: BBC Music Memories is designed to use music to help people reconnect with their most powerful memories. Create a playlist and take part in the survey to discover the nation’s favourite music memories.
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra: enter a ‘Digital Concert Hall’ with performance by the great conductors and soloists of our time, more than 40 live broadcasts, hundreds of archive concerts covering six decades, interviews and concert introductions and exciting documentaries
New York Metropolitan Opera: nightly live streaming of classical opera

Theatre

National Theatre Online: enjoy world class theatre from the comfort of your own home
Royal Shakespeare Company: enjoy RSC shows and other work from the comfort of your own home
The Shows Must Go On: Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals streamed for free online. Streamed on Fridays and available to watch for 48 hours
Theatr Clwyd Together: online creative programme to encourage and facilitate creativity amongst in the community. Free weekly themed creative projects online, with the Theatr Clwyd team and freelance artists providing content and inspiration in music, dance, visual arts and theatre

Virtual tours of Museums, Art Galleries and Cities

Armchair gallery: especially designed for people living with dementia. It includes artworks and artefacts from the collections of Chatsworth House, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, The Lowry, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Pitt Rivers Museum, Mr Straw’s House & Newstead Abbey, and lots of creative activities alongside them.
British Museum, London: in the 360 degree tour you will find the Rosetta Stone, Egyptian mummies and other ancient wonders. The museum’s amazing interactive infographic platform, History Connected, goes into further depth of various objects with curators, along a timeline.
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao: take a tour around one of the world’s around most distinctive art spaces. View collections of postwar American and European paintings and sculptures by Rothko, Holzer, Koons and Kapoor
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles: the museum has over 6,000 years’ worth of creative treasures from neolithic clay figures to Van Gogh’s Irises to Renoir’s La Promenade and much, much more. The Getty garden terrace is also available to view through Xplorit
MASP, São Paulo, Brazil: the Museum de Arte de São Paulo has one of the broadest historical collections available, spanning from the 14th to 20th centuries. Paintings appear suspended in the air and there’s also a temporary retrospective exhibition by Brazilian pop artist Teresinha Soares beside the building’s statement red staircase
Musée d’Orsay, Paris: situated in the former Gare d’Orsay, a Paris railway station and hotel, the musée is home to Cézanne, Monet and other French masters. It hosts the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist works in the world. The virtual tour also includes an online exhibition charting the history of the building
National Gallery, London: the National Gallery is home to 2,300 publicly-owned paintings, watercolours, drawings and other European art from the 13th to the mid-20th century. There are seven exhibition spaces of Renaissance art and the Central Hall to explore in its 360-view virtual touring pages, from portraits to large dramatic altarpieces.
National History Museum, London: from the diplodocus to the dodo, botany to butterflies, giant crystals to specimens in jars, the Natural History Museum’s vast collection has it all. Lose yourself in the corridors and gallery spaces
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, South Korea: explore a mix of print, design, sculpture, photography, new media and other large-scale installations. From Joseph Beuys to Warhol to Nam June Paik, the collection includes an international line-up of established artists and contemporary Korean artworks
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: the museum has a vast collection of art and historical objects across 80 galleries. View art work by Vermeer, Rembrandt and other Dutch masters while exploring the Great Hall and beyond
Vatican Museums, Rome: view soaring, vaulted ceilings, intricate murals and tapestries. Don’t forget to look up when exploring the seven spaces, especially in the Sistine Chapel
V21 Artspace: virtual tours of over 100 art exhibitions to explore

Libraries

Library catalogue and your account

Join the library

Library events

Find a library

eBooks, eAudiobooks, eMagazines and eNewspapers

Order and collect

Books and reading

Culture, arts and music

Digital services and support

Support for speakers of other languages

Homework, study and research

Health and wellbeing

Family history

Volunteering

Related information