Sydney Jewish Museum awarded ‘Highly Commended’ in two national museum industry awards
The Sydney Jewish Museum has this week been awarded ‘Highly Commended’ in two coveted industry awards; Museums & Galleries National Awards (MAGNA) and Museums Australasia Multimedia & Publication Design Awards (MAPDA).
The Museum’s new permanent exhibition, The Holocaust and Human Rights, was shortlisted in theMAGNA category for Permanent Exhibition or Gallery Fitout (Level A), alongside museums including Australian War Memorial (ACT), Arts Centre Melbourne (VIC), Migration Museum (VIC), and Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (TAS).
Launched in February this year by Australian Human Rights Commissioner Edward Santow, The Holocaust and Human Rights is one of the first permanent human rights exhibitions to open in a museum in Australia. Using new digital technologies and interactive media, the exhibition outlines human rights achievements and challenges, and focuses on the human rights facing groups within Australia today; refugees and asylum seekers, people with disabilities, Indigenous people, and the LGBTIQ+ community.
Shortlisted in the MAPDA category for Major Exhibition Catalogue (Level 3) was the Museum’scatalogue entitled Closer: Portraits of Survival, which supported last year’s temporary exhibition bythe same name. The shortlisted publication was in the company of major exhibition catalogues by Heide Museum of Modern Art (VIC), Maitland Regional Art Gallery (NSW), Monash University Museum of Art (VIC), Art Gallery of Ballarat (VIC), and Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwheti (New Zealand).
Beautifully designed by Alphabet Studio with photography by Katherine Griffiths, the catalogue entitled Closer: Stories of Survival features the portraits of 44 Holocaust survivors with an object and their story. This exhibition catalogue shows that whilst the spoken word has unimaginable power, it is the tangible relics of time that are anchors to the past and have their own stories to tell. Copies ofthe exhibition catalogue can be purchased at the Museum’s online shop, here.
For both the MAGNA and MAPDA awards, the Sydney Jewish Museum was among only a handful of finalists in its respective categories, and was selected for shortlisting from more than one hundred entries.
“To receive the accolade of ‘Highly Commended’ in each of the award categories that we were entered in is a prestigious achievement. These awards reflect the immense amount of research, design and expertise that went into the final products of both The Holocaust and Human Rights and Closer: Portraits of Survival.” – Rosyln Sugarman, Head Curator, Sydney Jewish Museum.
