With great joy, the European Museum Forum shares the decision by the CoE on the 2024 Winner of the Council of Europe Museum Prize.
Selected by the Culture Committee, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) meeting on 5 December 2023, the Sybir Memorial Museum (Białystok, Poland) wins the prize.
Being an important part of the European Museum of the Year Award scheme, the Council of Europe Museum Prize is awarded to a museum which puts particular emphasis on European perspectives and the interplay between local and European identities, on a commitment to and presentation of key value of democracy, human rights, inter-cultural dialogue, of bridging cultures and overcoming social and political borders. For more information on the Council of Europe Museum Prize please visit the Awards section of our website.
The 2024 winners in other categories will be announced on the last day of the EMYA2024 Annual Conference and Awards Ceremony that will take place in Portimão, Portugal from 1 to 4 May 2024. More information on the EMYA2024 Annual Conference and Awards Ceremony can be found here.
You can read below the full announcement by the Council of Europe.
Council of Europe announcement - 05.12.2023
The 2024 Council of Europe Museum Prize has been awarded to Sybir Memorial Museum (Bialystok, Poland). The museum was selected by the Culture Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), meeting today.
Sybir Memorial 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.
According to the committee representative for the Museum Prize, Constantinos Efstathiou (Cyprus, SOC): “The museum works with the strong narrative of deportation, reducing research-based material to the essentials, working with strong spatial images that give a voice to the selected authentic objects. The museum’s ability to convey history through workshops, events, media, publications and new formats is impressive and brings it to a broad audience.”
The Council of Europe Museum Prize has been awarded annually since 1977 to a museum judged to have made a significant contribution to the understanding of European cultural heritage, the promotion of respect for human rights and democracy, bridging cultures, overcoming social and political borders, broadening visitors' knowledge and understanding of contemporary societal issues and exploring ideas of democratic citizenship.
The prize forms part of the European Museum of the Year Awards. Recent winners of the prize include the Workers Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark (2023), Nano Nagle Place in Cork, Ireland (2022), and the Gulag History Museum in Moscow, Russian Federation (2021).
Source:
https://pace.coe.int/en/pages/museumprize
https://pace.coe.int/en/news/9308/sybir-memorial-museum-bialystok- poland-wins-2024-council-of-europe-museum-prize
