The 2020 Best Museum Award in Cuba was granted, recently, to the National Museum of Decorative Arts (Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativa - MNAD), located in Havana. The award was granted by the Cuban National Committee of the International Museum Council. This award was given due to the work done by this institution during COVID-19 times, mainly on digital platforms.

After receiving this award, the director Yosvani Fornaris Garcell, MSc. explained in an e-mail to Granma that during the current pandemic, the institution was forced by the circumstances to move its research, studies, and even exhibits to the internet (social media, blogs, virtual galleries, digital magazines, and others). He said that “the experience was acquired as we went until we arrived to a concrete result”.

The award, said the director, binds us. He added that the work done by the institution in 2020 has also been acknowledged by the National Council of Cultural Heritage (Consejo Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural CNPC), which also selected it as best museum during the annual balance. Fornaris Garcell said to Granma that the result is also a product of the work done by the previous director and current vice-president of the CNPC Juan González Rondón, MSc. and by the institution’s staff. This museum was founded on July 24th, 1964 and it is today part of the Net of Art Museums in Cuba.

The Best Museum Award in Cuba, in the year 2020 was given to the National Museum of Decorative Arts, an event that took place as part of the celebration of the International Museum Day in our country, on May 18th.

In order to commemorate this date, the institution officially opened a photographic exhibit (permanently): Online Collective Exhibit. Art Museums in Cuba, Dialogue between Collections composed by the pictures of 30 museums that are part of the Net of Art Museums in our country (located in 12 provinces), and the MNAD. A House’s Imaginary, by the photographers Carlos Merino and Yosvanis Fornaris, which has diverse views of the museum and its collections, these are available on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, among others.

Source: Granma