Belgium’s National Lottery has awarded €1 million to nine projects run by five federal scientific institutions to promote heritage, science and culture.
The winners were announced on Thursday following a call for projects launched in Spring for the country’s federal scientific institutions, the lottery said in a statement.
At the start of the year, the National Lottery invited Belgium’s 10 scientific institutions to develop ambitious proposals aimed at modernising the way they work, reaching new and more diverse audiences, and showcasing Belgium more effectively.
The institutions submitted 20 projects, which were then presented to a jury. In the end, nine projects from five institutions were selected.
The State Archives of Belgium secured funding for three projects. One, backed with €80,000, is a multilingual travelling exhibition exploring the economic history of eastern Belgium.
A second project, Brussels Disappeared, received €60,000. It will recreate lost neighbourhoods of the capital through original archives, an exhibition at Train World and a route through public space.
Its third project, Lighting up Belgium, was awarded €80,000 and will make available a collection of more than 250,000 digitised police photographs.
The Royal Library of Belgium received support for two initiatives. Filosofia & Fortuna was granted €200,000 for a project bringing medieval manuscripts into dialogue with works by contemporary artist Johan Tahon.
Its other project, BelgicaPress, also received €200,000. It aims to preserve and open up access to millions of newspaper pages for the wider public.
The Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage was awarded €93,000 for Het Lam Gods onderweg, an interactive travelling project tracing 10 years of pioneering restoration research.
The Royal Museums of Art and History received €50,000 for the film Het Museum van België. According to its creators, the project goes beyond documenting the day-to-day work of preserving heritage and also examines the role museums should play in the society of tomorrow.
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium were awarded €37,000 for Learn & Creative Stations, a project looking at how museum visitors experience art.
They also received a second grant of €200,000 for a project devoted to Magritte, Schuiten and Peeters.
