The Preiļi Museum of History and Applied Arts Receives Two Annual Awards

On 22 May, as part of the International Museum Day events, the Latvian Museums Association’s traditional “Golden Dust 2014” competition award ceremony took place at the Balvi Regional Museum. For its work completed during the previous year, the Preiļi Museum of History and Applied Arts received an excellent assessment in the competition, winning two of the seven competition nominations – “Annual Contribution to the Preservation of National Values (the Collection)” and “Exhibition of the Year.”

As the museum’s chief collection curator Ināra Krusta and chief artist Silvija Berezovska reported, in the nomination “Annual Contribution to the Preservation of National Values (the Collection),” the museum participated with the project “Restoration of Decorative Ornaments on the Window Surrounds of Latgale Houses.” As part of the project, some of the decorative ornaments from the window surrounds of houses in the collection—18 items in total—were restored last year. These remarkable cultural heritage objects, created by Russian carpenters, were acquired during an expedition in 2006 in the parishes of Riebiņi, Galēni and Silajāņi, as well as in Rēzekne Municipality, when collapsed and partly collapsed houses were surveyed. The window ornaments had previously been used in the museum’s collection exhibitions “Stories of Windows” and “The Common and the Different,” which received recognition in Latgale and Riga.  

In the “Exhibition of the Year” nomination, the museum was named a laureate for the exhibition “Jāzeps Baško—The Air Coachman,” dedicated to the 125th anniversary of the birth of the distinguished local figure, pilot, commander of the “Ilya Muromets” squadron, organiser of Latvia’s air force, General Jāzeps Baško, and the centenary of the First World War. The exhibition was created as a design object containing extensive information, making individual museum collection holdings accessible to visitors in an innovative way. At its centre is a transformable model of the “Ilya Muromets” aircraft, reduced to one-sixth of its original size and equipped with light and sound effects; information is presented on it in the form of text and images. The exhibition is also supplemented by General J. Baško’s uniform, a fragment of J. Baško’s crashed aircraft, a pilot’s cap, decorations, aviation insignia, and portraits of J. Baško and his partner, Jevdokija Baško. To reinforce the knowledge acquired, the exhibition also offers a digital test, “What Do You Know about Jāzeps Baško and Latvian Aviation?” As part of the exhibition, the museum souvenir “Jāzeps Baško—The Air Coachman” was also developed—a notebook with two information pages in three languages and a template for a paper model aircraft to be assembled.

The Latvian Museums Association organises the competition in order to review the work completed during the previous year and promote the development of the museum sector in Latvia. Identifying the award candidates and presenting the awards are intended to promote museums positively and ensure the systematic evaluation of museum work, taking into account the accessibility and significance to society of the products created by museums. The award winners are determined through a competition, evaluating the applications submitted. The award is granted for outstanding work results in Latvia’s museum sector in the following nominations: annual contribution to the preservation of national values (the collection); most child-friendly museum; exhibition display of the year; exhibition of the year; publication of the year (monograph, film, etc.); lifelong-learning project at a museum; and modern technologies at a museum.

We would like to remind you that last year the museum received awards in the nominations “Most Child-Friendly Museum 2013” and “Exhibition Display of the Year 2013.”

Congratulations to the museum team on its latest achievements!

Jolanta Rubine,
Content Editor of the Preiļi Municipality Council Website