Kenneth Hudson Award

Kenneth Hudson Award, 2010

The Kenneth Hudson Award is the European Museum Forum’s new honour for pioneering ideas and innovative ways in which museums treat controversial topics. Its purpose is to recognise individuals, projects and museums that have demonstrated “outstanding success in communicating ideas and values to the public”.
The Museum of Contraception and Abortion is certainly deserving of this honour. This acknowledgement sends a signal and provides support to a small institution that has been the focus of a great deal of opposition in its home country, all while serving as an international model. Dealing with these socially relevant topics in a scientifically competent and educationally professional manner is in the public interest. (For the first time, this private initiative received public-sector support from Austria’s Ministry of Health in September 2013.)
 

Receiving this award also provides evidence of the high level of quality and dynamism at Austria’s museums. The Salzburg Museum received the European Museum of the Year Award in 2009.

The other recipients:

• Ozeaneum in Stralsund, Germany (Museum of the Year Award)
• Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels (recognition award)
• The Science Gallery in Dublin (recognition award)
• Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam (recognition award)
• Agbar Water Museum in Cornellà de Llobregat, Spain (Micheletti Award for technical and industrial museums)
• Museum of Portimao in Portugal (Council of Europe Prize)

Since 1977, 1700 museums from 40 European countries have taken part in this competition.

Previous Austrian award-winners have been:

• Joanneum (Graz, 1983)
• Museum of Biometeorology (Zwettl, 1987)
• Moorland and Peat Bog Museum (Heidenreichstein, 1991)
• Museum of Folk Culture (Spittal an der Drau, 1995)
• Museum of Applied Arts, MAK (Vienna, 1996)
• inatura museum of natural history (Dornbirn, 2006)
• Salzburg Museum (2009)

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