Museum Selfie Day is celebrated annually on the third Wednesday of January.
The action was invented in 2015 by an American woman, Mar Dixon that loves visiting museums. This is a kind of international flash mob of photographs with own portraits against the background of museum exhibits. This day contributes to the better awareness of the collections stored in museums. The only thing you need to do to participate is to indicate the geolocation – what museum you are visiting.

Museum Selfie Day, the popular #MuseumSelfie network event takes place in many countries. On that day, Internet users from different parts of the world will share their selfies on the backdrop of exhibits from their favourite museums, galleries and other cultural institutions. To take part in the action, you need to post a photo from the museum Collection on any social network with the hash tag #MuseumSelfie. You can also use #CultureSelfie. Naturally, not only employees and visitors of museums, but also people in other cultural institutions can join the action.

A selfie in a museum can become not only a mark "I was here", but also an unusual, creative rethinking of the exposition and museum space in virtual reality. The initiators of the action - the authors of the English-language blog Culture Themes - also emphasize that the flash mob is purely entertainment and should not be politicized. This day promotes awareness of the great collections of art items held in museums. Since its inception, many museums around the world have joined the action, and thousands of people from all over the world have posted their museum selfies on social media. Museum selfie day is also a great reason to go to the museum. Often, the vision of visitors to the presented exposition is unexpected and very personal.

Almost all major Russian museums take part in this event. At the initiative of the Culture.RF portal and with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, Russian museums will join the action and invite their visitors to post ingenious “cultural” selfies on social networks. After all, this is a great opportunity to tell about each museum in a non-standard way and attract new viewers. Our audience on social networks is no less important than existing guests of the museum. Each visitor’s publication is a message that a person leaves in his Facebook (for instance) feed. After all, a selfie has long gone beyond a self-portrait: sometimes facial expressions, posture and background can say more than a text message. If we consider the museum as a repository of national and universal masterpieces, traditions and memory, the action, drawing attention to the treasures of museums through selfies, thereby modernizes the museums. Moreover, for visitors, this is a great opportunity to show their own creative vision.