The European Museum of the Year Award (EMYA), organised by the European Museum Forum (EMF), was presented at the 2017 Award Ceremony held in Zagreb yesterday, May 6, 2017.
The ceremony was even more festive because it coincided with the 40th Anniversary of the European Museum of the Year Award and the Council of Europe Museum Prize. There were over 200 people from 29 European countries in attendance.
Even though we kept our fingers crossed for the Croatian nominee, the Museum of Alka of Sinj, it, unfortunately, didn’t win any awards.
The European Museum of the Year Award 2017 went to MEG – Museum of Ethnography, Geneva, Switzerland. The museum received the EMYA trophy, The Egg by Henry Moore, which it will keep for one year.
“This is an excellent example of a living museum and a multicultural story open to everybody. After more than one hundred years since its first opening, MEG has been able to successfully transform its mission and approach its audience in a new way. Indeed, the two main guidelines driving MEG are multiculturalism and an interdisciplinary approach. The museum’s enormous ethnographical collections from all over the world are almost completely accessible online and are displayed in the most unbiased way, letting the objects speak for themselves as much as possible.
Commitment to diversity leads MEG to continue ethnographical research worldwide, on the one hand, and to plan socially engaging museum programmes in collaboration with other institutions on the other.
The museum’s entire performance is based on the belief that the protection and safeguarding of cultural diversity and the heritage of different cultures must be transmitted to the broadest audience possible.”
Other awards include:
• The Council of Europe Museum Prize and the accompanying trophy, La femme aux beaux seins by Joan Miró – the Mémorial ACTe, Caribbean Centre of Expressions and Memory of the Slave Trade and Slavery, Guadeloupe, France.
• The Silletto Prize, which recognises excellence in working with the local community and involving volunteers – the Leiria Museum, Leiria, Portugal.
• The Kenneth Hudson Award, given in recognition of the most unusual and daring achievement that challenges common perceptions of the role of museums in society – Museum of the First President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, Yekaterinburg, Russia.
The following museums have received Special Commendations from EMYA 2017 Judging Panel:
• The Special Commendation for Sustainability – Visitor Centre of the Swiss Ornithological Institute Sempach, Sempach, Switzerland
• Museum of Confluences, Lyon, France
• York Art Gallery, York, United Kingdom
• Muzeum Śląskie, Katowice, Poland
• Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Heraklion, Greece
• The Old Town. National Open-Air Museum of Urban History and Culture, Aarhus, Denmark
