Portimão will host the 2024 European Museum of the Year Award

Portimão will host, in 2024, the European Museum of the Year Award ceremony, which annually distinguishes the European museum sector.

The European Museum of the Year Award (European Museum of the Year Award or EMYA, in the original acronym) is the main and oldest of the awards given by the European Museum Forum and also the most prestigious in Europe.

Created to recognize excellence in the European museum sector and to promote innovative processes and excellence, the prize has been awarded since 1977, when the European Museum Forum was founded, created by the Council of Europe.

This year, the awards ceremony took place in Barcelona, ​​Spain, last Saturday.

And it was a Spanish museum that received the main award: L'ETNO, Museu Valenciano de Etnologia, in Valencia, won the prize for European Museum of the Year 2023.

The list of 33 nominees included two Portuguese museums, one of them from the Algarve: the Museum of Lagos — Dr. José Formosinho and Casa Fernando Pessoa, in Lisbon.

The “Portimão Museum of Welcoming, Inclusion and Belonging” award, presented in Barcelona by Teresa Mendes, councilor for Culture at the Portimão City Council, and José Gameiro, scientific director of the Portimão Museum, was awarded to Chillida Leku, in the Basque Country (Spain) ).

This award «celebrates a friendly environment of inclusion, where all elements of the museum, its physical environment, its human qualities, its exhibitions and public programs», which «contribute to making everyone feel valued, respected and belonging in the Museum ».

The museum that won this award, Chillida Leku, is an art museum with an active social agenda. The museum is dedicated to the work of an artist (Eduardo Chillida) and his fundamental values ​​related to human rights, social justice, music and philosophy.

«A true meeting point dedicated to bringing people together, it offers a wide range of programs and activities that use multisensory and multicreative expression to promote dialogue and tolerance», explains the EMYA.

Delivery of the Museum of Portimão Prize by Teresa Mendes and José Gameiro

Delivery of the Museum of Portimão Prize by Teresa Mendes and José Gameiro

The winners of the Portimão Museum Prize

General view of the museum with the Arco de la Libertad in the background. Courtesy of the Estate of Eduardo Chillida and Hauser & Wirth. © Zabalaga Leku. San Sebastian, VEGAP, 2022. Photo: Mikel Chillida

All EMYA 2023 winners

In addition to these awards, the “Meyvaert Museum of Environmental Sustainability”, to the Swiss Museum of Agriculture, in Burgrain, “Silletto of Community Participation and Engagement”, to the archaeological site Otar Lordkipanidze, in Vani, Georgia, and “Kenneth Hudson ”, to the 'place of memory' 23,5 Hrant Dink, in Istanbul, Turkey, the latter created by the founder of the awards, to distinguish institutional courage and professional integrity.

Created to recognize excellence in the European museum sector and to promote innovative processes and excellence, the prize has been awarded since 1977, when the European Museum Forum was founded, created by the Council of Europe.

In 2013, the Museu da Comunidade Concelhia da Batalha won the Kenneth Hudson prize, while the Museum of Leiria won the Silletto prize in 2017.

A Portuguese museum has never won the main category, but the Council of Europe prize has already been awarded to national spaces on two occasions: the Museu da Água, in Lisbon, in 1990, and the Museu de Portimão, in 2010.

Several national museums have received special mentions over the decades.