FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 11, 2017
ARLINGTON, VA – Ten museum exhibitions have gained accolades in the 29th annual Excellence in Exhibition Competition, presented by the American Alliance of Museums, the only organization representing the entire scope of the museum community. Top exhibitions included:
Overall Award Winner:
- Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site, Philadelphia, PA — “Prisons Today: Questions in the Age of Mass Incarceration”
Special Achievement:
- Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA — “Altered State: Marijuana in California”
- The Getty Research Institute and The Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles, CA — “Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China’s Silk Road”
- Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA — “The Rama Epic: Hero, Heroine, Ally, Foe”
- Conner Prairie, Fishers, IN — “William Conner House”
- The New Children’s Museum, San Diego, CA — “The Wonder Sound”
Honorable Mention:
- National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC — “Cultural Expressions”
- San Diego Natural History Museum, San Diego, CA — “Extraordinary Ideas from Ordinary People”
- Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace/Girl Scouts of the USA, Savannah, GA — “Girls Writing the World: A Library ReImagined”
- Wanapum Heritage Center, Mattawa, WA — “Tamanwit: Unwritten Laws and Beliefs, Wanapum of Priest Rapids”
Read more about the winning exhibits [RELINK].
“It is exciting to see the level of ingenuity, content, design and innovation in the exhibits that are being developed by museums and cultural organizations around the globe,” said Stacey Swigart, curator of collections at Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, who served as the competition coordinator. “The entries were received from a cross-section of just about every type of museum discipline with a really wide range of budgets and staffing. Each submission really shows an institutional commitment to create experiences that are informative, beautiful, inclusive, as well as push boundaries.”
The awards were presented in a ceremony May 8 at the AAM 2017 Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo in St. Louis.
Awards are sponsored by four of AAM’s Professional Networks including the Committee on Audience Research and Evaluation (CARE), Curators Committee (CurCom), Education Committee (EdCom) and National Association of Museum Exhibition (NAME).
Read more about the standards for excellence in exhibitions.
About the American Alliance of Museums
The American Alliance of Museums has been bringing museums together since 1906, helping to develop standards and best practices, gathering and sharing knowledge, and providing advocacy on issues of concern to the entire museum community. Representing more than 35,000 individual museum professionals and volunteers, institutions, and corporate partners serving the museum field, the Alliance stands for the broad scope of the museum community. For more information, visit www.aam-us.org.
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Press Contact:
Joseph Klem
Phone: 202-218-7670
Email: jklem@aam-us.org
