What happens when Buenos Aires’ vast array of museums and cultural centers are opened to the public after hours, free of charge? You get one of the more enchanted evenings the capital and province have to offer, attracting children and adults alike.

This weekend, upwards of 300 institutions will be welcoming visitors between 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 a.m. Sunday as part of the 19th annual Noche de los Museos (Night of the Museums). The cities and municipalities participating include Vicente López, Tandil, Lobos, and Tres de Febrero. Last year, more than 900,000 people attended, according to the city government of Buenos Aires.

Among the night’s myriad attractions is the University of Buenos Aires Law School, where the visual artist Paula Rivero will present her latest exhibition. Atemporal, which features 140 works from 64 artists, debuted on Thursday, September 21, and can be seen gratis until Monday, October 9.

“I’m happy with the quality of the works and the different expressions, techniques, and personal imprints that can be seen in this mega exhibition,” Rivero told Télam.

“We’re all born creative; it’s something that’s innate,” she continued. “Children know how to draw and tell stories before knowing how to read and write, but at some point, families and schools begin to correct that expressive child by marking errors, and that’s where that creativity is blocked.”

Through her teachings, Rivero hopes that she can “unblock those creative channels that we all have and allow that creativity to flow.” Her exhibition is sure to be one of the evening’s largest.

More kid-friendly destinations include the Teatro Colón, which will be open from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. and provide a range of activities, including backstage tours and theater workshops. The Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón (Colón Theater’s Higher Institute of Art) will also be staging a performance of the chamber opera Alice in Wonderland at 10:30 p.m. in the Usina del Arte cultural center. Tickets are free but limited and can be secured here.

At the Museo Moderno (Museum of Modern Art) in San Telmo, adults can take in the exhibition El arte, ese río interminable (Art, that endless river), as well as Manifiesto Verde (Green Manifesto), A 18 Minutos del Sol (18 Minutes from the Sun), and Juguetes Rabiosos (Rabid Toys). Families, meanwhile, can draw together and partake in educational exercises with the artist, Nicolás Nacif, beginning at 6 p.m.

Other major locations in the capital that will be open on Saturday night include the Planetario Galileo Galilei (Galileo Galilei Planetarium), which will be hosting 15-minute shows on a first-come, first-served basis, and the Museo Nacional Ferroviaro Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz (Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz National Railway Museum), where visitors can see the Patria — a steam locomotive dating back to 1896.

For those interested in educating themselves about Argentina’s most recent civic-military dictatorship, La Casa por la Identidad (The House of Identity) at the ESMA Museum and Site of Memory will be opening its doors at 7 p.m.

At 8 p.m., in the House’s auditorium, the Niní Marshall Theater School will perform Pájaros Mudos (Mute Birds), a play revolving around a student center from 1975 to 1976. And at 9:30 p.m., the museum will unveil a new installation of pañuelos (handkerchiefs) to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, in conjunction with the Centro Cultural Borges and Argentina’s Cultural Ministry.

On Tuesday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared ESMA a World Heritage Site during the World Heritage Committee’s 45th convention in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

For a complete list of the Night of the Museums’ programming in Buenos Aires, visit the Argentine government website here.

With information from Télam.