Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso has announced the list of five artists distinguished with the 2nd Prix Artiste Citoyen Engagé. Previously nominated and short-listed by a French-Spanish committee, the winners were chosen by a voluntary jury which evaluated artists working across all disciplines. This year, the distinction goes to the French artists Eric Minh Cuong Castaing and the duo Valérie Mréjen and Mohamed El Khatib; to the France-based Cameroonian artist Barthélémy Toguo and to the Spanish artists Basurama and José Suárez (aka El Torombo). All of them will receive a cash prize of 30,000 EUR in recognition of their work.
The foundation created this award in 2020 to acknowledge the civil engagement of artists who work to transform pre-established models through notable actions in response to a range of social issues. The first edition distinguished two French—Neïl Beloufa and Patrick Bouchain—and three Spanish artists—Cristina Pato, Santiago Cirugeda and Julio Jara.
The manifold crises we are currently experiencing—climate emergency, health crisis, weakening of democracies, etc.—have evinced serious shortfalls and inertias affecting today’s world that urgently call for inspiration for change. The Prix Artiste Citoyen Engagé wishes to underscore the engagement of artists as fully entitled agents in the transition towards more environmental and inclusive societies that enable citizens to develop their full potential. “Artists often need to make sense of our environs, to cultivate empathy, promote democracy and appeal to social and environmental responsibility,” explained Pepa Octavio de Toledo, head of the foundation’s Art & Citizenship department in Spain. “With the big challenges affecting our world, artists have a crucial role to play and their imagination may help us to generate more sustainable futures.”
The winners
Basurama: Waste as a potential resource for social transformation
Art, architecture and the environment are the three cornerstones of the work of Basurama, a collective focusing its research and action on the city and the complex processes coexisting within it. Basurama’s projects examine developments inherent to the mass production of actual and virtual waste within the consumer society, providing new visions which may generate new attitudes and ways of thinking and encourage the construction of new possibilities. Among its most notable recent initiatives are ”ReLabs (Laboratory of Living Waste),” a project that overhauls Madrid City Council’s current waste management system with a view to increasing its efficiency and adapting it better to today’s new contexts.
Eric Minh Cuong Castaing: Inclusive dance as a means of communication
In his practice, the choreographer and visual artist Eric Minh Cuong Castaing combines dance, images, sound and new technologies to explore the experience of fragility, the loss of mobility and the importance of gestures in engaging and communicating with others. His transdisciplinary practice takes the form of choreographic pieces, films, installations and performances, in which he involves professional and amateur dancers of all ages, with disabilities or in situations of vulnerability. The ”In situ in socius” approach the artist has been developing over time proposes a new form of dancing together and highlights the need for human gestures in a society that aspires to be more inclusive.
Valérie Mréjen and Mohamed El Khatib: Art in a home for elderly people in need of care
The novelist and video and visual artist Valérie Mréjen and the playwright and theatre director Mohamed El Khatib joined forces to create ”LBO,” an actual art centre within a home for elderly people in need of care. A true model of shared creation, the new space, opened in 2022, has sparked a dialogue between the residents, artists, carers and cultural institutions. By placing itself at the intersection of art, care and old age, the project reinvents the boundaries and definition of what we understand as an art space.
José Suárez, El Torombo: Flamenco as a motor for change and to overcome adversities
Steeped in flamenco, José Suárez, aka El Torombo, has taken an active involvement in the performances of other musicians and dancers, mainly through hand-clapping, juggling world tours with his job as a teacher and director of a Flamenco academy and ”Fuera de serie,” a project in which he works with disadvantaged young people to show them that it is possible to overcome their own context and that art is an important motor for change to make it possible.
Barthélémy Toguo: A social, agricultural and environmental art action
With its mix of gesture, drawing and colour, the work of the Cameroonian artist Barthélémy Toguo transmits a formidable vital energy driven by boundless imagination and poetry. The inexhaustible sources informing his work and his struggles include his own life experience, the history of Africa and the current affairs of his time. In 2000 Toguo founded Bandjoun Station, an art space for residencies and exchange located in the high plains of Western Cameroon.
The jury
The members of the jury of the 2nd Prix Artiste Citoyen Engagé are: Stéphanie Aubin, choreographer, Director of Maison des Métallos; Costa Badía Melis, artist and cultural manager, expert in functional diversity; Patrick Bouchain, architect and city planner, winner of the 2020 Prix Artiste Citoyen Engagé; Jesús Carrillo, lecturer in History and Art Theory at UAM, member of the Fondation Daniel & Nina Carasso steering committee; Juan Casero, co-director of Onfire Flamenco Festival and musical producer; Elvira Dyangani Ose, director of Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona (MACBA); Denis Laborde, research director at CNRS and director of studies at EHESS; Graziella Niang, director of the Jazz à Tours festival; Pierre Oudart, director general of Institut national supérieur d'enseignement artistique Marseille Méditerranée; Cristina Pato, musician, winner of the 2020 Prix Artiste Citoyen Engagé; Guillermo Solana, artistic director of Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza; and Barbara Wolffer, administrator of Panthéon—Centre des Monuments Nationaux.
The Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso is a family foundation established in 2010 placed under the aegis of the Fondation de France.
The foundation is active in two focus areas: sustainable food, for universal access to healthy food that is safe for people and ecosystems; and art and citizenship, to develop critical thinking and reinforce social bonds.
