Alvor Lifeguard Interpretation Centre wins European museum award

The European Museum Forum ( EMF ) held the annual European Museum of the Year Awards (EMYA) conference between 21 and 25 May in Bialystok, Poland, as well as the respective awards ceremony for the best of what is done in European museums, with the highlight at national level being the Alvor Lifeguard Interpretive Centre.

The cultural facility was distinguished with the «Silletto Award» for Community Participation and Involvement 2025, an award that deserves to be celebrated with the community, who are invited to join the celebration scheduled for June 1st, at 5:30 pm, at the Antiga Lota de Alvor.

The “Silletto Prize” is awarded to museum facilities that, opened in the last four years, have demonstrated excellence in the involvement of the local community in the planning and development of museum and heritage projects.

The Foundation, which gives its name to this award, celebrates the deep, continuous and strengthening involvement between the museum and its partners, where the cultural facility assumes itself as a point of orientation and reference at the heart of its communities, be they local, national or global.

This is the basis of the Alvor Lifeguard Interpretation Centre, an exhibition space dedicated to fishing arts, but which also focuses on developing activities that involve visitors, while collaborating with the community around its heritage and local customs.

The space is considered a mirror of the history of daily fishing in this community, from the times when boats were rowed and sailed and fishermen were guided by the North Star, to the present day with its transformations and challenges.

The mission of the cultural facility is to reflect, safeguard and enhance this local maritime heritage.

The museum centre created in Alvor aims to promote the history and identity of the fishing community. This is a factor that has become increasingly important at a time when the work of fishermen has been losing visibility and social value.

To counter this reality, dedicated work is carried out daily to dignify the future of this fishing community, through the Portimão Museum .

In this sense, the ethnological study currently being carried out by the Portimão Museum on longline fishing in Alvor is relevant, as it seeks to record its operation in accordance with its work processes and social organization.

The aim is to safeguard and perpetuate this traditional, artisanal and sustainable fishing, one of the least predatory and polluting, and, likewise, to value those who practice it, with the intention of registering it in the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage, a working instrument created within the scope of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The Alvor Lifeguard Interpretive Center (CISA), opened in December 2023, is a project of the Portimão City Council , implemented through the Portimão Museum in partnership with the Alvor Parish Council .

CISA is located in the old Alvor lifeguard station, a property that has undergone renovation and museography work to become a museum centre, although it continues to house the rowing lifeboat, its central piece, which was in service from 1933 to 1974.

This distinction, now awarded by the most prestigious and oldest award in European museology, is a collective recognition and will be celebrated with everyone on Sunday, June 1st, from 5:30 pm, at the Antiga Lota de Alvor, as part of the celebrations of National Fisherman's Day.

The initiative will include a moment of fellowship with “food and drinks”, followed by the viewing of the CISA presentation video, in a heartfelt celebration shared with all those who helped build the project.

“The community is warmly invited to participate in this celebration of pride, identity and gratitude,” according to the municipality.

This feeling of belonging and pride, which is transposed into this celebration, has been evident since the past.

In fact, the community still remembers that in 1983, after the lifeguard station was closed, the Portuguese Navy tried to take the lifeboat to the Navy Museum in Lisbon, but was unsuccessful, as the inhabitants of Alvor revolted, welded the station gates shut, broke the rail where the boat was going down and did not allow it to leave.

This oral history was the starting point for the Museum to work side by side with the community and design the Alvor Lifeguard Interpretation Centre as a space for interpreting the collective memory of the history of the “Alvor” lifeguard and its role as a symbol of protection, resilience and solidarity of seafarers.

Therefore, it is the community that tells its story throughout the exhibition “The Lifeguard: Rowing of a Community”, through screens, interactive equipment and donated objects, documentation and photos.

Another curious detail is that the exhibition space is equipped with rails so that the lifeboat can continue to leave the Center for the river, as it is a living museum object, a central element of the local procession in honor of the fishermen, which includes part of the route by sea.

The Alvor Lifeguard Interpretive Centre project was supported by CRESC Algarve 2020 – Algarve Regional Operational Programme.

The conversion of the old station and the lifeboat into museum equipment resulted from a cooperation protocol between the Ministry of National Defense and the municipality of Portimão, signed in 2017.

Other entities were key contributors to this project, such as the Shipwreck Aid Institute (ISN), the Navy Archive, the Hydrographic Institute, the Navy Museum and other maritime-related facilities such as the Ílhavo Museum.

Locally, the collaboration of entities linked to the community was essential, such as the Association of Professional Fishermen of Alvor, the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Alvor, the Associação Cultural Recreativa Alvorense and the Port Authority of Portimão.