This ‘helmet’ is indispensable in illustrating the history of distillation in the Low Countries. In various 16th and 17th-century engravings and paintings, you can see how vapours were cooled down and converted into liquids in a helmet like this. In Belgium, we do not know a second one like this.
In 2020, the MAS is taking a whole new course with its youth program "MAS in Young Hands". What must be stored in the MAS? According to young people, what is heritage and where do we find it in the city? With these and other questions, young people go to work online and offline and will inspire an artist in residence.
In the MAS, you can see the world. Or at least part of it, because the world also wants to see the MAS. After all, the extraordinary pieces in the MAS are often of great interest to other national and international museums. The MAS regularly receives requests for temporary loans of objects. And we are happy to do so. The pieces from the MAS collection can be found not only in Antwerp, but all over the world.
CLOSED - Everyone knows them: the baker, the butcher, the greengrocer, the grocer round the corner. You drop in and do your shopping. There’s lots to tell about: the shopkeepers, the customers, the merchandise and of course the shops themselves. But you can saw for yourself in this exhibition, in the neighbourhoods where the stories were collected.
In 2024, we selected a dental collection to perform a valuation on. There was no knowledge within the MAS about the provenance and history of this collection. It was not clear whether these objects had a place within the collection plan.
The exhibition reveals the intimate relationship between the city and food, from the sixteenth century to the distant future. Follow the trail of food in the city and find out how what we eat has left its mark on the map of Antwerp.
In the multimedia project 'In many hands' twenty-five people shine their light on the Congolese collection of the city of Antwerp. They speak about an object of choice from the one hundred highlights in the exhibition.
Military violence and mass persecution of Jews and dissenters during World War II broke the city. Personal stories and objects make this period very tangible in this new permanent MAS exhibition.
CLOSED | What can be heritage? What has value and what does not? A photo exhibition in the boulevard explored these questions. It showed the people behind the city's heritage. And the exhibition was complemented by online stories.
