2011 ECF Princess Margriet Award
8 Feb 2011
The 2011 ECF Princess Margriet Award for Culture was presented to visual artists Šejla Kamerić and Kutluğ Ataman. The Jury’s choice sent out a strong signal that the diverse social landscape of Europe is vividly depicted by the artistic imagination. The awards ceremony took place on 8 February 2011 in Brussels.
Selection Process
In the early months of 2010, the European Cultural Foundation invited nominations from a broad network of experts in different regions and cultural practice disciplines. A shortlist was then drawn up on the basis of further research, and second opinions gathered from advisers in the European Cultural Foundation’s network. The jury met in the summer of 2010 for an in-depth assessment of the shortlisted laureates and selected the two recipients.
2011 Award Jury
- Iara Boubnova, Founding Director, Institute of Contemporary Art, Sofia, Bulgaria
- Hilary Carty, Director, Cultural Leadership Programme, UK
- Sudeep Dasgupta, Associate Professor, Department of Media & Culture, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Robert Palmer (Jury chair), Director of Culture, Cultural and Natural Heritage, Council of Europe, Strasbourg, France.
Ceremony
In the setting of the Royal Flemish Theatre, the award ceremony combined artistic performance, portraits and speeches that made the case for art as the best means of imagining the future differently. Jury member, Hilary Carty, praised Kamerić and Ataman as two artists who were not only challenging reality in their work but were subverting it, and with a purpose.
In the annual address, HRH Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands noted, “we must acknowledge diversity, and do so in all honesty”. She praised the laureates for helping us to arrive at a better understanding of our own complexity so that we fear the complexity of other people and cultures less. Guest speaker Charles Esche, Director of the Van Abbemuseum, identified good artists as being ‘social seismographs’ whose work reveals how we can live together, free of fear.