Luigi Micheletti Award

At a ceremony held in the Museum of Industrial Production of Olive Oil, one of the nine museums runned by the Piraeus Bank Cultural Foundation, Den Gamle By (Aarhus, Denmark) was announced as the winner of the 2016 Luigi Micheletti Award. The trophy was presented to the museum’s director, Thomas Bloch Ravn, by Karl Murr, President of the EMA Panel of Judges. Representing the Luigi Micheletti Foundation was René Capovin. 

The judges said that Den Gamle By is a pioneering institution in the museological handling of the pressing social questions of our time. It is a museum for the people in the truest sense, showing great courage in addressing relevant subjects which elsewhere often fall victim to a nostalgic-romantic view of history. Den Gamle By makes a visit to the museum a communicative and inspiring experience. It demonstrates strikingly that culture is a wonderful way of reaching out to society. The jury had no hesitation in voting unanimously for this museum as the winner of the 2016 Micheletti Award.

Twelve European countries are represented this year in the competition, with a wide geographical spread – from Brno in the Czech Republic to Tire in Turkey, and from Aveiro in Portugal to Warsaw in Poland. The range of subjects represented illustrates the diversity of institutions which come under the umbrella headings of science, technology, industry and 20thcentury history. A continuing trend is the increasing blurring of demarcation lines between the academic disciplines of science and art and between what is thought of as the traditional museum and organisations which are absorbing this role into their daily activities. This year we have noticed particularly the willingness of museums to engage in dialogues on the social dilemmas of today’s society, bringing hitherto taboo subjects into their exhibitions and in this way maintaining relevance in the fast-moving modern world.