Bursa hosts meeting for European Museums

The northwestern city of Bursa will announce the European Museum of the Year Award 2009, as it hosts 200 hundred representatives from nearly 100 museums at this year's annual European Museum Forum. The event showcasing 97 different museums from 26 countries starts today and runs through Saturday. With its historic architecture, natural wonders and other treasures that have been protected for thousands of years, Bursa is a popular attraction for many prominent names in the arts. Organized with the support of the Council of Europe and the patronage of Queen Fabiola of Belgium, the EMF will be joined by the Luxembourg Princess Sibilla Sandra Weiller when she becomes a member of the evaluation committee. Among other well-known names who will attend the forum are Spain's Irun Mayor Jose Antonio Santana, who will represent the Oiasso Roman Museum, and Basque city council member Maria Jesus Aramburu. The forum committee boasts 15 experts from 12 countries and 32 national correspondents. The forum will host representatives from museums that display everything from archaeology, literature and science to ethnography, technology and transportation. The Istanbul Modern Art Museum and the Ankara Foundations Museum are among the museums competing for this year's award. The European museum managers arrived in Bursa after a two-day tour of Istanbul. They will also visit historic sites in Bursa. The committee will interview representatives from all the candidate museums, and the award ceremony will be held on Saturday. After Bursa won the "Museum Worth Visiting Award 2006" at the ceremony in Lisbon, Bursa Mayor Recep Altepe said: "With this award, Bursa has taken a step forward in proving the quality of its museum arts. The decision to hold this year's forum in Bursa was made in Lisbon." During the forum, the people of Bursa will be able to attend the activities organized in the city. There will be a show of works by famous calligraphy artist Ali Toy and a cartoon exhibit in the Tayyare Culture Center. The Bursa City Museum will be displaying Ahmet Erdonmez's work on the city's cuisine. The museum will also show tile work by Turgut Tuna. Next year the EMF will be held in Tampere, Finland. One of the nominees for museum of the year will be the Istanbul Toy Museum.