PARIS.- On Wednesday, December 11, 2024, the Art Explora—Académie des beaux-arts European Award was presented to five cultural organisations recognized for their particularly innovative projects engaging with audiences.

The Award ceremony took place during the annual Arts & Audiences Now! event, a unique gathering for cultural professionals interested by the new formats of dialogue between the arts and audiences. The event was held under the iconic dome of the Institut de France, in Paris, offering an extraordinary space for connection and exchange.

The Award Winners are:

Category I: cultural organisations with an annual budget of up to 500,000 EUR
Udruga Skribonauti (Croatia) with the project “Go on With the Story” which enable inmates from the only female penitentiary in Croatia, writers, visual artists, and musicians to create together a digital collection of short stories for everyone to read and share.

Category II: cultural organisations with an annual budget between 500,000 EUR and two million EUR

TRAFÓ House of Contemporary Arts Budapest (Hungary) with the project “PerformanceBus”, a traveling bus to encourage artistic encounters and create more access to contemporary art and performance across Hungary.

Category III: cultural organisations with an annual budget of over two million EUR

CN D Centre national de Danse (France) with the project “1 km of dance” which aims at getting as many people as possible dancing over 1 km by organising an annual event in collaboration with dance organisations of the cities involved.

Special Jury Award

Fundació Orfeó Català—Palau de la Música Catalana (Spain), with the project “Palau Vincles”, an annual music and arts programme for 950 young people who are living in vulnerable situations across Barcelona.

Audience Choice Award

Museum of Cycladic Art (Greece) with the project: “Tell Me Your Story: A Digital Repository of Cycladic Heritage” which involves local communities in the creation of a digital repository to preserve the intangible cultural heritage of 3 Cycladic islands, Anafi, Sikinos and Kea.

The Art Explora—Académie des beaux-arts European Award

Open to all non-profit cultural organisations across Europe, regardless of their artistic field, the European Award celebrates innovative approaches to fostering access, participation, and audience engagement with the arts.

For its fifth edition, the European Award granted three 50,000 EUR awards, along with a 10,000 EUR Public Choice Award, to recognize and support the most groundbreaking initiatives. This year, a Special Jury Award of 20,000 EUR was also awarded to one of the shortlisted projects.