CIMAM acknowledges the Queens Museum, New York, with the Outstanding Museum Practices Award 2021

11 November 2021

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Gdansk, November 09, 2021

On the occasion of the 53rd edition of the CIMAM Annual Conference, the International Committee of Museums of Modern Art has announced the winner of the Outstanding Museum Practice Award, which in this first edition recognizes the work of museums in response to the consequences of The Global Pandemic.

After the first round of voting by CIMAM members, CIMAM Board Members selected the Queens Museum, New York, to receive this inaugural award. In addition, the Jury gave special mentions to 3 of the 16 submitted nominations.

Suzanne Cotter, a member of CIMAM's Board and chair of the Outstanding Museum Practices Award*, explains the selection criteria: "With the Outstanding Museum Practices Award, we were looking for boldness, creativity, specificity, and responsiveness to context. At this time of cultural and political reckoning, museums are more aware than ever of the importance of responding with their activities and ways of working to the urgencies of equality, social justice, climate change, and the impact of technology, all accentuated by the global spread of Covid-19."

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Queens Museum, 2014. Photo by David Sundberg, Esto.

The Queens Museum in New York has been honored with the award for its radical recalibration of its mission and operational model to more meaningfully serve its communities, from surrounding residents to the communities of artists, educators, and cultural producers. This recognition highlights the museum's responsiveness to urgency and its fearless engagement and rethinking of the institution and its role-based on hospitality and collective care principles..

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La Jornada and Together We Can Food Pantry. Queens Museum

Special mentions went to the Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum, Qatar, the CHAT - Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile, Hong Kong, and the CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo. Móstoles, Madrid, Spain for their work in, respectively, innovative and culturally sensitive engagement with excluded communities, transnational partnership models that respond to our ecological urgency, and the development of new cognitive tools for physically navigating the museum with the advent of collective social distancing

The Outstanding Museum Practice Award contributes to CIMAM's core mission to promote knowledge and exchange among museum professionals and modern and contemporary art collections. The award wants to be a platform for the visibility of the exceptional work done by the museum community around the world at a time of planetary crisis.

Given the many challenges facing today's museum model and its future, the Outstanding Museum Practices CIMAM Award is an ongoing project. "The award is intended to be a source of inspiration over time, where professionals can undertake a reflection and approach to the challenges in our specific contexts, and that affect our community on A global and planetary scale," explains Suzanne Cotter.

Learn more about the selected projects:

Winner:

Queens Museum

https://cimam.org/resources-publications/cimam-outstanding-museum-practice-award/nominated-practices/queens-museum/

Special Mentions:

  • Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum, Qatar

https://cimam.org/resources-publications/cimam-outstanding-museum-practice-award/nominated-practices/sheikh-faisal-bin-qassim-al-thani-museum-qatar/

  • CHAT - Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile, Hong Kong

https://cimam.org/resources-publications/cimam-outstanding-museum-practice-award/nominated-practices/chat-centre-heritage-arts-and-textile-hong-kong/

  • CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo. Móstoles, Madrid, Spain

https://cimam.org/resources-publications/cimam-outstanding-museum-practice-award/nominated-practices/outstanding-museum-practices-ca2m-centro-de-arte-dos-de-mayo-m%C3%B3stoles-madrid-spain/


* The 2020–22 CIMAM Outstanding Museum Practice Award Committee consists of six CIMAM board members: Suzanne Cotter (Chair), Suhanya Raffel, Ernestine White-Mifetu, Ann-Sofi Noring, Malgorzata Ludwisiak, and Rhana Devenport.