The Winners 2024

THE EUROPEAN MUSEUM OF THE YEAR AWARD 2024

INARI, FINLAND

Sámi Museum Siida

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The Sámi Museum Siida is the national museum of the Sámi people of Finland, the only recognized indigenous culture in Europe. It is the only museum in Finland to actively collect Sámi cultural heritage by preserving, safeguarding, and presenting Sámi tangible and intangible cultural heritage and conducting collections-based research. The museum, founded in 1959 and housed in its own building since 1998, was fully refurbished and reopened in 2022 to include renovated public spaces and a nature centre. The new museum has been created for, by, and with the Sami communities as a safe place to collect Sámi heritage and to bring it front and centre in a contemporary cultural dialogue. The museum is also the result of repatriation, or rematriation, of Sámi material culture from the Finnish National Museum to Siida after years of negotiations and debates. Around 2,200 items were repatriated in the early 2020s, and the new building was designed to preserve the collection and make it accessible to locals and international visitors. Nearly 300 Sámi participated in the repatriation process.

The museum distinguishes itself by enabling ethical participation and inclusive conservation practices. Throughout its renewal process, the new Sámi museum developed a wide cooperation network with various Sámi associations, craft associations and educational institutions, with whom various research, data collecting, and development projects have been carried out. Many informants from the Sámi community and volunteers were also actively involved in helping the elder members of the community and facilitating their participation.

The museum has shown excellence in its open, participatory, and transparent process of integration, which creates new opportunities for both the Sámi and the broader population to link past and present. By recognizing their right of ownership of ancestral lands at the judicial level as well as of the Sámi Parliaments as a means of cultural autonomy, the museum also strongly resonates with broader discussions about the practice of reparations for Indigenous peoples, in Europe and globally. The museum is an effective agent in equipping citizens to understand cultural dialogue and the role of Indigenous people in contemporary contexts, and likewise broadening visitors’ knowledge and understanding of the contemporary societal issues of Indigenous peoples. Sámi Museum Siida also provides professional leadership in bridging cultures through ethical restitutions, reparations, and participation practices in culture and heritage
The museum distinguishes itself by enabling ethical participation and inclusive conservation practices. Throughout its renewal process, the new Sámi museum developed a wide cooperation network with various Sámi associations, craft associations and educational institutions, with whom various research, data collecting, and development projects have been carried out in cooperation. Many informants from the Sámi community and volunteers were also actively involved in helping the elder members of the community and facilitating their participation.

The museum has shown excellence in its open, participatory, and transparent process of integration, which creates new opportunities for both the Sámi and the broader population to link past and present. Through the recognition of their right of ownership of ancestral lands at the judicial level as well as of the Sámi Parliaments as means of cultural autonomy, the museum also strongly resonates with broader discussions about the practice of reparations for Indigenous peoples, in Europe and globally. The museum is an effective agent in equipping citizens to understand cultural dialogue and the role of Indigenous people in contemporary contexts, and likewise broaden visitors’ knowledge and understanding of the contemporary societal issues of Indigenous peoples. Sámi Museum Siida also provides professional leadership in bridging cultures through ethical restitutions, reparations, and participation practices in culture and heritage.

THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE MUSEUM PRIZE 2024

BIAŁYSTOK, POLAND

Sybir Memorial Museum

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The Sybir Memorial Museum opened in 2021 in Bialystok, near the border with Belarus. It stands on the original site of the Poleski Railway Station. Bialystok was assigned to the Soviet sphere in the German-Soviet division of Poland and became part of the Belarusian Soviet Republic after the Soviet annexation.

The museum tells the story of successive deportations of people from Poland to Siberia, northern Russia, and Kazakhstan during the Soviet occupation and the division of Poland in the period 1940-41, and deportations during the communist period of the Soviet Union after the Second World War until 1952. The museum expertly balances a museum for the history that Poles associate with Siberia and a memorial for the last survivors of deportations and their relatives. It addresses an important moment in European history and, more broadly, deportation and transgenerational memories of struggle. The museum aims to play a community-building role in gathering the memories of individual experiences and testimonies from witnesses to history. Its ability to convey history through workshops, events, media, publications, and new formats is commendable and successfully reaches broad audiences.

The museum is effective in addressing the universality of experiences such as deportation, enslavement, exile, struggle for survival, care for the family in times of danger, and mutual support of people in difficult conditions. The museum recognises the importance of difficult memories within today’s Polish and European communities and a commitment to democratic ideals and respect for human rights.

Ihor Poshyvailo, Director General of the National Memorial to the Heavenly Hundred Heroes and Revolution of Dignity Museum (Maidan Museum) is a cultural activist, an eminent ethnologist, museologist, cultural manager, and art curator. As one of Ukraine’s most prominent museum leaders, Ihor has demonstrated unwavering dedication to preserving and protecting cultural heritage during times of conflict.

Amidst the chaos of war, he has tirelessly championed the cause of the cultural sector, shedding light on its plight and rallying international support. He is the driving force behind numerous initiatives aimed at safeguarding museums and heritage sites across Ukraine. His visionary leadership as the co-founder and coordinator of the Heritage Emergency Response Initiative (HERI) has been instrumental in mobilising resources and expertise to protect priceless artefacts and historical landmarks.

Furthermore, Ihor’s influence resonates within the corridors of power, as he also serves as a member of the National Council for the Recovery of Ukraine from War. Through strategic guidance and collaborative efforts, he has worked tirelessly to document, digitise, and preserve cultural heritage in areas ravaged by the conflict, and to promote the integral role of cultural heritage in fostering resilience and healing.
Ihor’s journey is a testament to the transformative power of passion and perseverance, hence the decision of the EMF Board of Trustees to honour him with the Kenneth Hudson Award for Institutional Courage and Professional Integrity this year. His unwavering commitment to preserving Ukraine’s cultural legacy amidst the ravages of war embodies a spirit of resilience and hope that will inspire generations to come.

THE SILLETTO PRIZE FOR COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION AND ENGAGEMENT 2024

TALLINN, ESTONIA

Kalamaja Museum

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The newest branch of the Tallinn City Museum in the heart of the old Kalamaja district, the Kalamaja Museum, is a participatory museum co-created by and managed with the local community. Housed in a small (217 m2) white functionalist villa built in 1932-1934 as a single-family home, the museum underwent a significant redevelopment and opened to the public in 2021. Its permanent exhibition, 
A Village in the Middle of the City, explores the history of Kalamaja by presenting the stories of six personas selected by current and former residents of the suburb through surveys among the local population conducted by museum staff and collaborating ethnologists. These are a man of Kalamaja, a child of Kalamaja, a parent of Kalamaja, a life artist of Kalamaja and an animal of Kalamaja. Together, the characters embody different times and eras and tell the story from the Middle Ages to today.

A community-driven museum, residents and visitors are encouraged to participate in or initiate new events, exhibitions, tours, and events. The museum also provides urban projects that encourage visitors to explore the neighborhood independently.

The museum empowers its citizens by actively listening, enabling, and caring, and its core values and mission is responding to the needs of its community partners. This means it is a museum of action and constantly changes. It acts for people and with people, and the quantity and originality of projects proposed to or by residents and co-created with a small museum staff is remarkable, including the recent –and bold– projects, Tracking the Rats of Kalamaja or Discovering the History of Sewage Maintenance Holes.

THE PORTIMÃO MUSEUM PRIZE FOR WELCOMING, INCLUSION AND BELONGING 2024

MESSOLONGHI, GREECE

Salt Museum

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The Salt Museum opened in 2020 in the heart of the salines of Messolonghi, a protected natural ecosystem rich in birdlife and of central cultural and financial importance. Sea salt has been harvested in the Messolonghi Lagoon since at least the 14th century using a method that has existed since antiquity. The region is one of Greece’s most important salt producers. The museum was created as an extension of Diexodos, a cultural centre focusing on the history and cultural heritage of Messolonghi.

The museum is housed in an old dormitory for salt workers on Tourlida, an islet in the lagoon, and is aimed at telling the story of salt and its production in the region, preserving, and recovering traditional skills, and promoting ecotourism – it shows how salt has had a tremendous impact on human activity including language, art, work, history, and the environment. The museum hosts a variety of educational and cultural activities to bring together the Messolonghi community and foster a shared sense of history, industrial heritage, and environmental sustainability.

The Salt Museum is a particularly welcoming, dynamic, and engaging place that makes visitors feel at home, listened to, and valued. It has been most impressive in having engaged and involved all members of the Messolonghi community, in creating museum, but also in its continued development. This is a place full of heart, humility, and a prevailing willingness to make a difference.

MEYVAERT MUSEUM PRIZE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY 2024

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

Museum of the Home

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The Museum of the Home records and rethinks ways of living to foster new conversations about living better lives with others. Following recent renovations and extensions to the previous building, including a public garden, the museum has shifted its focus from a chronological discovery of everyday objects to telling stories about the idea of a house and of a general sense of home. Home is universally relevant but deeply personal. Therefore, everyone should be able to relate to the content in the museum, including the physical and digital spaces.

Against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, the home became an even greater tenet of the museum, with collections and educational programmes addressing key challenges for society that include food traditions, building a shared understanding of food inequality and living together in challenging times. Social isolation is another key tenet of the museum. Its Free Tea Friday programme is a weekly opportunity for residents to drop in and connect with others.

The museum’s beautiful garden is also noteworthy, containing different types of herbs, spices and vegetables, all of which provide visitors and the broader community with a historical and positive outlook on sustainability and environmentally minded practices in our daily lives. The museum’s commitment to environmental sustainability sustains how it works with different audiences and fosters responsible consumption, from using recycled materials in our family and community workshops to informing school groups about the changes in technology and approaches to recycling and sustainability over the decades.

SPECIAL COMMENDATIONS

VIENNA, AUSTRIA

ZOOM Children's Museum

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A hub for children’s engagement and learning in Vienna, the ZOOM Children’s Museum offers a sensory discovery of the world for children of all ages. The exhibitions and workshops are created in collaboration with local artists, engineers, and cultural mediators to nurture children’s curiosity, creativity, and self-expression on their own terms.

ZOOM projects address key topics in the areas of the sciences, art, architecture, and everyday culture in ways that are playful and engaging to children. Working individually or in small groups, children zoom in on objects and situations, which enables them to find out about themselves and discover their skills, abilities, and creativity. The museum’s multimedia lab – Zoom Animation Studio– offers a creative space for children and teenagers to take the roles of screenwriters, directors, cinematographers, photographers, and sound engineers. With the help of state-of-the-art technology, they create animated films, 3D animations, sound collages, and pop songs. The projects enable children and young people to critically reflect and discover the world’s contemporary issues and trends. Pop-up projects across the city widen access beyond the building, encouraging a broader, more diverse audience.

ZOOM is a worthy example of engaging and enabling audiences inside and outside the museum and fostering new skills by means of creative ways to teach children responsibly and ethically, but also by making the experience fun and memorable.

ANTWERP, BELGIUM

Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA)

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As the main art museum in southern Flanders, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) reopened its doors in 2022 after over a decade of renovation. The newly refurbished 19th-century building presents new opportunities to discover its renowned Flemish and Belgian, as well as international artists from the 14th to the 20th centuries.

The museum’s reinvented approach, working and collaborating with local communities, offers new connections between the art on display and its visitors, encouraging more tailored experiences where traditional displays of masterpieces are put alongside more contemporary, and often whimsical visual arts.

The museum has purposely foregone the traditional mission statement, preferring not to convey a definitive meaning or message as an institution but to leave room for dialogue, feeling, playing, experimenting, and creating. KMSKA also cooperates with universities, research centres, scientific working groups, and other museums to advance scientific research on art and visual culture conservation. An on-site conservation workshop –now made visible to visitors– gives greater insight into the work behind the scenes. A highlight of the museum visit is Radio Bart. This demonstrates the commitment and consideration towards making art spaces accessible and raising disability and sensory accessibility awareness in contemporary society.

MARTINIQUE, FRANCE

Memorial of 1902 I Frank A. Perret Museum

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The Memorial of 1902 I Musee Frank A. Perret recounts life in the town of Saint Pierre before, during, and after the explosion of Mount Pelée on 8 May 1902. Originally a scientific museum dealing with volcanology and the historic significance of its founder, volcanologist Frank A. Perret, Memorial of the 1902 Catastrophe was recently added to highlight the museum’s new focus on a cultural approach to the catastrophe and to recall the disaster experienced by the people of Martinique and its worldwide repercussions.

Objects rescued from the ashes of the volcano, including catastrophe souvenirs taken by tourists, are exhibited alongside stories of survivors of the tragedy. At the heart of the Memorial also stands a list of the names of the 7045 victims of the 1902 eruptions so far identified, found mainly during recent archival searches that brought together several partners, including the Martinique Research Association on Family Histories. This makes this museum a particularly moving place to rethink the relationship between place, nature, and how generations work through difficult events.

This museum has innovatively returned to object-based learning by centring the agency of the people’s stories and memories connected to the objects.

OSLO, NORWAY

National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design

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The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design holds Norway’s largest public art collection. The museum was established between 2003 and 2005 following the merger of the National Gallery (est. 1836), the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (est. 1876), the Museum of Architecture (est. 1976), the Museum of Contemporary Art (est. 1990), and the state programme for travelling exhibitions, Riksutstillinger (est. 1953). The National Museum’s other venues include the National Museum – Architecture, which presents temporary exhibitions, and the Villa Stenersen, one of the foremost examples of early modernist architecture in Norway.

The new museum building opened in June 2022, offering 13,000 square metres and more than 90 exhibition rooms. It is considered the largest art museum in the Nordic region. Already in its first year, the museum counted 1,5 million visitors.

The museum is an excellent example of an institutional commitment to a critical examination of what “national” means. A central tenet to its curatorial approach is to reflexively investigate and challenge the very canon which it has historically contributed to establish, to fragment its narrative, and to interweave the many cultural threads lost to art historical and visual-national memory. This is a national museum that leads the way in pushing for critical reflection and setting professional standards for best intersectional practice.

WŁODAWA, POLAND

Museum and Memorial in Sobibór. German Nazi Extermination Camp (1942-1943), Department of the State Museum at Majdanek

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The Museum and Memorial in Sobibór commemorates the Jewish women, children, and men who were murdered in the German Nazi extermination camp that operated there between the spring of 1942 and December 1943. It safeguards and restores the former campgrounds, including its mass graves, documents the history of the camp, and records the memory of the victims deported from various European countries during World War II.

The permanent exhibition retraces the crimes of the Holocaust perpetrated in Sobibór by displaying the personal belongings of the murdered deportees alongside documents and photographs. The memorial restores the identity of the people and restores their humanity. The exhibition also emphasises the prisoners’ uprising on 14th October 1943, which is of notable significance to the history of the camp and broader memory of the Holocaust. The museum’s motto today is the words of one of the revolt leaders: “Let the world know what happened here.” The use of personal belongings is an especially effective curatorial strategy. Strong narratives of remembrance are emotionally charged, and the human stories are central to ensuring visitors remember the 180,000 victims who perished on the campgrounds.

DERBY, UNITED KINGDOM

Museum of Making

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The Museum of Making is based on the site of what is recognised as the world’s first modern factory – today the Derwent Valley Mills UNESCO World Heritage Site. It celebrates Derby’s 300 years of innovation and manufacturing and aims to inspire new creative ideas.

The museum’s collections comprise objects and archives that chart the progress of Derby’s ongoing manufacturing history and the people who were involved in these industries. Created and designed with and by Derby professionals, the museum has something for a wide range of audiences. There is a varied programme of exhibitions, events, workshops, and hands-on activities. The museum aims to be a place for creativity, acquiring of new skills, experimentation, and cooperation.

While celebrating past manufacturers, the museum also seeks to inspire future makers through its comprehensive learning and participation programmes and fully equipped workshops and studio spaces. The Museum of Making supports STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Mathematics) and creates awareness among younger groups about engineering.

Museum of Making is an example of how industrial heritage can be used in a participatory way to enhance the skills of its visitors and make STEM inclusive and connected to contemporary society.