Renovated Vani, Tbilisi venues nominated for European Museum of the Year Award
A visitor at the Vani Museum, which showcases items unearthed on the territory of western Georgia's historical Colchis Kingdom and has also hosted displays on the Argonauts, exhibits on the history of Pompeii and more. Photo: Annie Davarashvili/Georgian National Museum
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Two recently renovated venues in Georgia, the Vani Archeological Museum in Georgia's west and the Ilia Chavchavadze Literary Memorial Museum in capital Tbilisi, have been nominated for the 2023 European Museum of the Year Award by the European Museum Forum.
The EMF revealed the two venues - of the Georgian National Museum network and the Union of Tbilisi Museums respectively - among 33 nominees for the prize on Tuesday, after judges from the Forum had visited and evaluated the institutions across the country.
In the shortlist, the Georgian museums find themselves alongside European venues like the University of Tartu Museum in Estonia, Kunsthaus Zürich in Switzerland and Olympic Museum Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The museums have been picked with the idea of the Award in recognising institutions that contribute "profoundly to our understanding of the world as well as to the development of new paradigms and professional standards in museums".
EMYA2023 NOMINEES ARE NOW ANNOUNCED!
— EuropeanMuseumForum (@museum_forum) December 6, 2022
33 museums are nominated to take part in the 2023 edition. The EMYA2023 Annual Conference and Awards Ceremony will take place in Barcelona, from 3 to 6 May 2023. For more information: https://t.co/HCLvS0jkIc#EMYA2023 #EuropeanMuseumForum pic.twitter.com/gLdXNWBPZf
Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze responded to the selection of the Tbilisi-based venue by thanking the Union for their work and pledging continued "update and rehabilitation" of museum institutions in the city.
Breaking its wraps in 2020 after undergoing the first renovation in 35 years, the Vani museum was originally built as the first archaeological museum in Georgia, and followed extensive discoveries at the Vani Archaeological Complex since the mid-20th century.
Archaeologists working at the site through decades unearthed local and Greek ceramics, sculptures, metal cutlery, accessories and more dated between 800 BCE-100 CE.
These and other exhibits will now be safeguarded in the museum space renovated by the Municipal Development Fund with financial support from the World Bank.
The Literary Memorial Museum for the 19th/early 20th century historical figure was renovated in a four-year effort that ended last year. Photo via Ilia Chavchavadze Literary Memorial Museum
The Tbilisi-based Ilia Chavchavadze Literary Memorial Museum safeguards the legacy of the publicist, author and a major figure of the country's 19th/early 20th century national movement, with its four-year renovation completed last year under the New Tiflis programme run by the Tbilisi Development Fund.
Established in 1982, the museum's collections involve over 14,000 items, including personal items and archives, editions of works by Chavchavadze, documentary and photographic material, publications and articles by the writer.
Georgian museums have been recognised at EMYA ceremonies over the years, with the Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography nominated for the 2016 edition, Tbilisi's Art Palace shortlisted in 2019 and the Bolnisi Museum in the south handed a diploma at the annual Awards earlier this year.
The winners of the 2023 European Museum of the Year Award will be revealed at the Annual Conference and Awards Ceremony hosted in Barcelona between May 3-6.