Fourth Award

We must be radical and innovative if we are to build Europe anew. That was the clear message emanating from the fourth Princess Margriet Award dedicated to artists and thinkers who make change possible. The fourth Princess Margriet Award laureates, film-maker and cultural activist John Akomfrah and museum director and curator Charles Esche, received their awards in the Brussels cultural venue, The Egg, on 19 March, 2012.

John Akomfrah was chosen for his ground-breaking film oeuvre woven from perspectives often hidden from the mainstream narratives of European history; Charles Esche was chosen for his exceptional leadership in rethinking centres and museums of art as public spaces that show us the power and value of art in engaging with the contemporary world.

The prestigious annual public award ceremony was hosted by ECF’s Director Katherine Watson and was attended by HRH Princess Margriet of the Netherlands, HRH Princess Astrid of Belgium and ECF’s President HRH Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands. Read Princess Laurentien's opening speech.

The award ceremony included the first screening of Peripeteia, a specially commissioned short film by Akomfrah, and a speech celebrating Esche's work, given by the Italian activist Franco 'Bifo' Berardi, called Art in the Age of Barbarisation.

Akomfrah and Esche have mixed aesthetics and radical politics throughout their distinguished careers. Jury member Jan Dibbets praised Akomfrah's film oeuvre - begun so spectacularly with the groundbreaking Handsworth Songs - for having cast an honest eye on Europe's migrants. He also praised Esche, Director of Eindhoven's Van Abbemuseum, for expanding our ideas of what a museum can be, and proving that culture is a living system of values that is forever changing as we enter into conversation with it.

The newly released fourth ECF Princess Margriet Award publication gives a thought-provoking impression of the entire day including the debate, speeches and filmsand portraits of the Award laureates John Akomfrah and Charles Esche.

The awards and sum of 25,000 euro's each were personally presented by Princess Margriet of the Netherlands.

Before the Award ceremony on the 19 March, ECF and Flemish-Dutch House deBuren hosted a public debate "Politics, economics and culture, a different balance?" between laureate Charles Esche, Franco "Bifo" Berardi (writer and activist), Judith Marquand (Oxford University) with moderator Frénk van der Linden (writer and journalist). The debate addressed the urgent responsibilities of culture, economics and politics in constructing a new horizon of democracy. Esche, Berardi and Marquand affirmed the need for investment in culture and the arts if we are to safeguard democracy in Europe.

Selection Process

The fourth Princess Margriet Award laureates were selected from a list of 90 nominations including international renowned cultural thinkers and practitioners, nominated by a network of pre-eminent cultural actors from all over Europe. The Jury reviewed all submissions and made its final choice in autumn 2011.

The jury members of the fourth ECF Princess Margriet Award were:

• Hilary Carty (Chair), former Director, Cultural Leadership Programme, UK
• Sudeep Dasgupta, Associate Professor, Dept of Media & Culture, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Jan Dibbets, Artist, The Netherlands
• Maria Lind, Curator and Director, Tensta Konsthall, Sweden
• Els van der Plas, Director, Premsela, Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion, The Netherlands.

 

Fourth Award Laureates

John Akomfrah

Born in Accra, Ghana and living and working in London, filmmaker and cultural activist John Akomfrah makes films that are at once poetic and essayistic - creative dialogues that pose intriguing questions about culture, migration, integration and intercultural exchange. He explores both urban and rural landscapes, using diverse perspectives to challenge accepted narratives of history and giving prominence to its unheralded changemakers.

The jury praised the development of Akomfrah’s oeuvre from his earliest film, the ground-breaking 'Handsworth Songs' (1986) to his latest film, 'Nine Muses' (2010), an artistic meditation on migration, myth and memory which creatively weaves together layers of original footage, archival clips, sound and poetry. His latest film 'The Stuart Hall Project' was shown as part of the Sundance Film Festival in January, 2013.

In its entirety, Akomfrah’s longstanding body of work is a profound and multi-layered creation championing voices often hidden from the mainstream discourse of European pasts.

In 1982 Akomfrah was a founding member of the Black Audio Film Collective, the seminal British film-making collective and produced a broad range of work — fictional films, tape slide installations, gallery installations, experimental videos and creative documentaries. Since 1998, Akomfrah has been Director of the film and television production companies, Smoking Dogs Films, (London) and Creation Rebel Films (Accra).

Charles Esche

The Jury chose British-born curator and writer Charles Esche, Director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, for the span of his curatorial oeuvre in which he has opened up the museum as a public space of active engagement that reaches out to both local and international communities.

His impressive record of challenging programming (exhibitions, debates, symposia), has developed a conversation between art and society, a conversation that imagines how individual citizens can live and enact a future society together.

Since the 1990's - Esche has, together with a roster of artists and with the teams of Tramway (Glasgow), Rooseum (Malmö) and the Van Abbemuseum - explored the many potential functions of contemporary art centres and museums as important agents in and of the public sphere. He is co-founder and co-editor of Afterall Journal/Afterall Books - a contemporary art publisher launched in 1998 and is based at Central St. Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London - with Mark Lewis.

 

At a time of increased entertainment of culture and decreased access to public spaces, Esche's work as a curator and leader of institutions is of utmost value. His ability to create meaningful and urgent debates within and beyond contemporary art is followed by many practitioners around the world and acts as a powerful inspiration.