2024 Excellence in Exhibitions Awards go to Cooper Hewitt, American History, SAAM and APAC

The Smithsonian is pleased to celebrate the winners of the 2024 Smithsonian Excellence in Exhibitions Awards at a special ceremony, 10:00 a.m., Wednesday, April 30, at the National Museum of Asian Art. This awards program, inaugurated in 2017, recognizes outstanding work in the field of exhibitions and acknowledges the dedication and creativity of exhibition staff throughout the Smithsonian.

Join us in person at the Meyer Auditorium at the National Museum of Asian Art or online at https://www.si.edu/live to celebrate the award winners.

2024 Excellence in Exhibitions Award

The 2024 Smithsonian overall Excellence in Exhibitions Award goes to Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum for Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial. The winning project team’s organization will receive $1,500 in recognition of its exemplary work.

Special Achievement Awards

Three teams will be recognized with special achievement awards:

Winner of Special Achievement in Design is the Asian Pacific American Center for Sightlines: Chinatown and Beyond.

Terence Nicholson, Safety Jacket: A Mourning in Chinatown, 2018. Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution. Gift of Alexia and Roderick von Lipsey

Winner of Special Achievement in Audience Engagement is the National Museum of American History for Reckoning with Remembrance: History, Injustice, and the Murder of Emmett Till.  

The entrance to “Reckoning with Remembrance: History, Injustice, and the Murder of Emmett Till.

Winner of Special Achievement in Content/ Collections and Scholarship is the Smithsonian American Art Museum for The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture.

Roberto Lugo, DNA Study Revisited, 2022, urethane resin life cast, foam, wire, and acrylic paint, 66 × 27 × 17 in. (167.6 × 68.6 × 43.2 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Catherine Walden Myer Fund, 2024.19

Each team’s organization will receive $1,000 in recognition of its outstanding work.

This program is coordinated by Smithsonian Exhibits and PEEPS (Promoting Excellence among Exhibit Professionals at the Smithsonian). For questions about the Excellence in Exhibitions Awards, please email ExhibitAward@si.edu.

We also take this opportunity to thank our steering committee:

• Saul Sopoci Drake, Exhibits Project Director, Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service;
• Julia Garcia, Exhibit Developer, National Museum of American History;
• Betsy Robinson, Head of Exhibit Planning, Smithsonian Institution Exhibitions.

Please join us in congratulating this year’s recipients of the Smithsonian Excellence in Exhibitions Awards!