Youth project ‘De Trappen’ by KMSKA wins Queen Mathilde Prize (Antwerp)

The youth project The Stairs of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts (KMSKA) won the 2024 Queen Mathilde Prize on Wednesday. “The museum thus creates a safe place for young people. It is a project for and by young people,” says the King Baudouin Foundation.

Through the activities of De Trappen, a youth organization of the KMSKA, young people can come into contact with the building, the museum operations and the collection through an active art experience. In this way, the Antwerp museum hopes to take a step towards a more inclusive museum.

Young people have the opportunity to design the museum as a hangout, an after-school meeting point, a festival and much more. In this way, the museum will reach around a thousand young people by 2023 through, among other things, two open workshops per week and four master classes per month. This offering will be further expanded in 2024.

A core group of 25 young people carries out the project. Together with museum employees, they are developing a program for a larger target group. Professionals in the arts and in (mental) science support them in this. De Trappen is also supported by a broad partnership of Young Fenix, Betonne Jeugd, Permeke Bilbiotheek, Jos and BAZZZ.

(N.D.)