This year ASH received 13 nominations for the Valorisation Award relating to nine different projects. The selection committee was very impressed by the diversity, originality and impact of the initiatives, and appauded all nominees for their inspiring work.

Yet the committee's decision about this year’s winner was a unanimous one: Djoeke van Netten for the exhibition for which she acted as guest curator at the Amsterdam Scheepvaartmuseum on ‘Blaeu’s wereld in kaart’—‘The World According to Blaeu’, which opened this April.

Djoeke’s personal research and expertise, both stemming from her doctoral work on Willem Blaeu (1598-1673), the VOC’s cartographer, and her subsequent NWO Veni project on secrecy and openness in overseas companies in the Dutch Golden Age, very much determined the exhibition’s content and form.  As guest curator, over a period of seven months she was closely engaged in selecting the objects to be displayed, devising the overarching themes, writing short texts to accompany the displays, and helping with marketing plans.  Alongside short movies—‘minicolleges’— she has given lectures about the exhibit, and trained other lecturers to the same in her absence, and written articles for National Geographic, Geschiedenis Magazine, and blogs.  Announcements of the exhibition appeared in various media. All of this has surely brought Blaeu’s map to the attention of far more than the over 15,000 visitors who saw it for themselves at the Scheepvaarmuseum in the first three weeks of the exhibition alone. 

About the award

The ASH Valorisation Award is presented annually to (a) member(s) of the Amsterdam School for Historical Studies. The award recognises an individual or team’s ability to reach new audiences, demonstrating a lasting impact on the public. The award is accompanied by a prize of € 250.