May 16, 2018, 5pm
Tenth ECF Princess Margriet Award for Culture to Forensic Architecture and Borderland Foundation
On May 16, 2018 the European Cultural Foundation celebrates the tenth anniversary of the ECF Princess Margriet Award for Culture at the Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. On this occasion, the 2018 Award will be presented by HRH Princess Margriet of the Netherlands to Forensic Architecture (UK) and Borderland Foundation (PL).
The ECF Princess Margriet Award for Culture was initiated in 2008 as an annual award to acknowledge and amplify the work of individuals and collectives living and working in Europe whose creative practice can help construct social horizons of hope and sustainability.
Over the last ten years the wider repercussions of global changes have posed numerous social and political challenges. The decade has been marked by economic, environmental, and democratic crises; by tragedy, conflict, and an ever-increasing acceleration of movement—ideas, goods, and people constantly in motion, intersecting and, all too often, colliding. In the face of these upheavals, ECF has sought to highlight the courage of cultural changemakers who engage with culture as a critical space for renegotiating our ways of understanding the world and tracing the contours of a more democratic future. Since its inception, the Award has honoured laureates as diverse as the cultural fields in which they work. They come from performing and visual arts, literature, music, film, cultural activism, architecture, digital and media culture. Previous laureates include the late cultural theorist Stuart Hall; theatre makers Krétakör; citizen laboratory Medialab-Prado; foundation for the commons Teatro Valle Occupato; artists Lia and Dan Perjovschi and writers Navid Kermani and Aslı Erdoğan.
The 2018 laureates
2018 welcomes Forensic Architecture and Borderland to the growing constellation of ECF Princess Margriet Award for Culture laureates.
Forensic Architecture is a ground-breaking multidisciplinary research group based at Goldsmiths, University of London, consisting of a team of international architects, artists, film-makers, scientists, political theorists, students and citizens. Forensic Architecture draws on architectural knowledge and new technological and aesthetic methodologies to meticulously reconstruct sites of conflict, trauma, oppression and injustice. Its carefully constructed investigations have provided decisive evidence in a number of legal cases, including in national and international courts as well as in citizen tribunals and human rights processes, leading to military, parliamentary, and UN inquiries. Alongside their presentation in such political and judicial forums, Forensic Architecture’s investigations have also been shown in cultural and artistic venues as examples of the transformative power of creative practice in an image- and data-laden environment.
Borderland is both a foundation (NGO, founded in 1990) and a local centre for cultural encounters, creation and reflection (Centre Borderland of Arts, Cultures and Nations, founded in 1991). For nearly 30 years, Borderland has been working to research, revitalize and nurture a model of community-building informed by diverse cultural imaginaries. Very often, their work has an intergenerational character as their activities involve the whole community, from the oldest to the youngest members. Cooperating closely with the local communities of the Sejny-Suwałki border region of northeast Poland, Borderland uses a wide range of artistic and cultural means, for instance to facilitate lively, hands-on animation workshops with young people, exhibitions, and an on-going children’s research-and-theater project, The Sejny Chronicles. The foundation also has an internationally renowned Klezmer orchestra and organizes workshops and symposiums on cross-cultural dialogue for scholars and cultural practitioners from across the globe.
European Cultural Challenge and Courageous Citizens book launch
Prior to the Award ceremony on May 16, 2018, ECF hosts the European Cultural Challenge, a two-day advocacy retreat to find cultural responses to the pressing challenges Europe is currently facing. During the ceremony the first copies of a book commemorating ten years of the Award will be launched. Entitled Courageous Citizens. How Culture Contributes to Social Change, the publication contains various reflections on ten years of advocating for the change-making capacity of culture and affirming culture as a means to open up the space for learning, living together, and questioning the character of democracy, one that is continuously rethought along the way.
More information on the laureates and Award ceremony or take a look at the trailer.
For more information and press materials, contact:
Karen Jochems
kjochems@culturalfoundation.eu
Enrica Flores d'Arcais
efloresdarcais@culturalfoundation.eu
About the European Cultural Foundation (ECF)
For more than 60 years, the European Cultural Foundation has been catalyzing change and connecting people through culture. From grassroots to policymakers, the ECF has been connecting cultural changemakers across Europe and beyond.
