Amsterdam Museum nominated for Friends Lottery Museum Prize 2021

The Amsterdam Museum has been nominated for the Friends Lottery Museum Prize 2021 and has a chance to win 100,000 euros to realise its museum dream: to collect the city of today together with residents and visitors of Amsterdam. Besides the Amsterdam Museum (Amsterdam), Museum Volkenkunde from Leiden and Kasteel Hoensbroek from Hoensbroek (Limburg) are also nominated. The public can vote until 26 November 2021 vote for his favourite museum via www.museumprijs.nl.

''We are incredibly proud to be nominated and hope many people will vote for us'' says Judikje Kiers, general director of the Amsterdam Museum. On Thursday 2 December 2021, the television programme Coffee shopd announce which museum received the most public votes and can call itself the winner of the Friends Lottery Museum Prize 2021.

Theme 2021: 'A digital story'
The Museum Prize has a different theme every year. This year, the theme of the award is 'A digital story'. The Amsterdam Museum is nominated because the museum distinguishes itself by using digital tools that support and enhance its story. For example, in May 2020, when all museums had to close due to corona, the Amsterdam Museum launched the digital exhibition together with the people of Amsterdam and lots of partner institutions Corona in the Citywww.coronaindestad.nl. Residents and lovers of the city submitted and are submitting their own stories. There are now more than 3,000 entries and as many as 200,000 people visited the digital exhibition. Stories are still being submitted by residents and lovers of the city, adding to the Amsterdam Museum's collection. Organisations and makers, as guest curators, also set up new digital rooms with works from the digital collection every month.
In addition, in the period 2020-2021, the Amsterdam Museum has developed innovative digital platforms at the exhibitions Refresh Amsterdam, The Golden Coach and Freethinkers. The digital platforms provide additional information, depth and reflection, and also allow visitors to make their own contributions. In 2021, the Amsterdam Museum has set up a special recording studio in which it creates digital television programmes and podcasts for their visitors, viewers and listeners.

Museum dream
The winner of the Museum Prize will receive 100,000 euros to fulfil his/her museum dream. For the Amsterdam Museum, that dream is a physical presentation of stories collected by the city itself about the city of today.
Artistic director Margriet Schavemaker explains the museum dream: ''The Amsterdam Museum is more than a museum: it is a place where the stories of residents and visitors to the city are listened to. We strongly believe in the power of story. Every personal story matters and is worth listening to. An archive of stories is invaluable for future generations: together, the stories form the story of our time. During corona, together with many partners, we collected more than 3,000 experiences of residents and visitors in the city via the digital exhibition Corona in the City www.coronaindestad.nl. If we win the Museum Prize, we would like to also create a physical space in the museum where we give space to residents and the more than 40 partner institutions from the city we work with, to tell their own stories and together we collect the city of today.''

Friends Lottery Museum Prize
The Prince Bernhard Culture Fund and the Friends Lottery (formerly BankGiro Lottery), in collaboration with the Museum Association, annually award the Friends Lottery Museum Prize (formerly BankGiro Lottery Museum Prize). The prize is the largest public award for museums in the Netherlands. Last year, a total of 84,176 people voted for their favourite museum. Previous winners are: Naturalis Biodiversity Center (2020), Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (2019), Maritiem Museum Rotterdam (2018), Textielmuseum Tilburg (2017), Nationaal Monument Kamp Vught (2016), Fries Museum Leeuwarden (2015) and Klok & Peel Museum Asten (2014).