The Prince Claus Awards are presented annually to people and organisations who have done exceptional work in the field of culture and development in Asia, Latin America and notably in Africa. As well as crowning the achievements of an artist, an intellectual, a group or an organisation, the Prince Claus Awards are also intended to stimulate the recipients to expand their horizons still further. They are an acknowledgement not only of the qualities of the award winners, which are self-evident, but also of the wider social and cultural significance of their work. The winners of the 1997 awards embody the policy aims of the Prince Claus Fund. The Fund regards it as an honour to present these awards.
In 1997, the year in which the Prince Claus Awards are being presented for the first time, the winner of the Principal Award receives the sum of 100,000 US dollars. 20,000 US dollars go to each of the other nine recipients. This year's procedure was as follows. Potential award winners were nominated by experts in the field and by members of the Fund's International Advisory Council. The nominations were submitted to the 1997 Award Committee, consisting of chairman Adriaan van der Staay, Professor of cultural politics and cultural critique at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and Director of the Social and Cultural Planning Office, Rijswijk, Dr. Lolle Nauta, Emeritus Professor of Social Philosophy at the University of Groningen, and the essayist Anil Ramdas. The committee submitted its shortlist of candidates to the Board, which selected the ten award-winning individuals and organisations.
The recipients of the 1997 Prince Claus Awards believe in cultural exchange; they combine traditional and contemporary cultural activities into a new synthesis and represent quality and diversity. Among them are unconventional individuals, visionary personalities, scientists of sterling quality and committed, caring organisations.
The 1997 Principal Award goes to the Zimbabwe International Book Fair in Harare, which over the last six years has grown into an important meeting place for publishers, writers, poets and translators. The fair is a highly dedicated organisation whose activities push back and cross frontiers, despite operating on a shoestring. It endeavours to promote intercultural exchange in the field of literature on an international level, and scouts the field for African literary talent. The Fund was particularly impressed by the bold implementation of its network function, coupled with a modern, practical organisational approach. The Zimbabwe International Book Fair provides a medium for many young writers, a platform for narrators and liaises between publishers and translators. It is also a stage for actors, dancers and singers. The fair's success is due to a logical, lucid organisation combined with an active policy of producing and disseminating African literature. The Prince Claus Fund regards it as a privilege and a pleasure to present its Principal Award to the Zimbabwe International Book Fair in the person of its inspired and engaged director since 1991, Trish Mbanga.
Nine Prince Claus Awards go to the following individuals and institutions.
A Prince Claus Award goes to CODESRIA, Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, Dakar, Senegal 1973, for its valuable and stimulating activities in the field of independent, non-governmental scientific research in Africa. In a region where the programmes and goals of scientific research are often imposed by government, CODESRIA adopts an important stance. The Fund hails such autonomy, and also the dedication of the scientists who have opted for CODESRIA, often turning down more opulent prospects in other countries. CODESRIA publishes extensively in the field of social studies, and has recently implemented a cultural programme that subjects various discipline to analytical scrutiny. CODESRIA is to be praised for its alert course of action and excellent research programme. It is with great pleasure that the Prince Claus Fund presents this award to the historian Achille Mbembe.
In 1972 Stephen Spender founded Index on Censorship with the aim of promoting freedom of expression for writers and intellectuals, journalists and artists. He did so in response to an open letter in The Times from Soviet dissidents Pavel Litvinov and Larisa Bogoraz Daniel. A group of western intellectuals, including Spender himself, Yehudi Menuhin and W.H. Auden, reacted with the following telegram: 'We, a group of friends, representing no organisation, support your statement, admire your courage, think of you and will help in any way possible.' The first issue of 'Index on Censorship' was published shortly afterwards. Index on Censorship is an organisation that stands up for people who are persecuted because of their ideas and literary activity, particularly in the 'South'. Their plight is highlighted in a magazine which exposes such injustices. 'Index' has been publishing uncensured articles right from the start. The editors have also drawn political attention to cases of cultural and political abuse. In 1974 'Index' publicised the muzzling of the Chilean press following the coup. Between 1978 and 1986 it reported on executions and disappearances in Guatemala. In the mid-eighties it supported Sudanese journalists who were being persecuted and tortured for reporting on hunger and poverty in their country. Index is to be congratulated on its 25th anniversary. The Prince Claus Fund pays tribute to an initiative which opened up the way towards free, independent literary publishing, and to its courageous and longstanding activities on behalf of freedom of literary expression, especially in non-western countries.
The Mozambican artist, performer and freedom fighter Malangatana Valente Ngwenya (Malantane, 1936) receives a 1997 Prince Claus Award for his great influence on the arts in Mozambique and Africa. Malangatana was a servant at the Nucleo de Arte, an artists' association founded in 1936, before becoming an artist who is renowned all over the world. The Australian teacher Ullie Beier once described him as a sophisticated artist who has not been subjected to the process of colonial assimilation. Working in a naive, almost surrealist style, Malangatana depicts a colony in decline and the pointless suffering of the people. The Maconde sculptural tradition is apparent in his murals and paintings. The combination of traditional forms with a personal touch has made his work famous and loved. During his country's struggle for independence, Malangatana's engagement was reflected in both his work and activities. It earned him eighteenth months in a colonial jail. A retrospective of his work was staged in 1986. He has participated in numerous exhibitions, including 'Artists of the World Against Apartheid' (1985), and has frequently sat on the jury for 'Heritage', a major annual art event in Zimbabwe. For the first Johannesburg Biennial of 1995 he collaborated with South African artists on a huge mural. This was an activity after Malangatana's own heart, for he is eager to do anything that will contribute to the development of a country, a group or an individual. Universally venerated as an artist, as a man and as a dedicated human being, Malangatana is a symbol for a culturally free Africa and a worthy recipient of the 1997 Prince Claus Award.
The Ghanaian musicologist and composer Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia (Mampong Ashanti, 1921), founder and director of the International Center for African Music and Dance at the University of Ghana, receives the Prince Claus Award for his outstanding contribution to the dissemination and advancement of knowledge about African music and the cross-fertilization of traditional and contemporary musical forms and techniques. Nketia has a vast experience of, and influence on, the performing arts in Africa. Everything he does has always been motivated by his profession and by the desire to convey his knowledge to others. He encourages the archiving of music and dance to make them accessible to others. He has also introduced the most modern techniques to the development of musical instruments and musical performance, thus forging a link with traditional forms of African music. 'The old and the new must now be regarded as a continuum and not as a duality', he wrote in an article entitled 'National Development and the Performing Arts of Africa'. Professor Nketia is truly inspirational. His research into African performing arts has triggered a great deal of activity. The Centre of which he is the founding director is a meeting place for young and old, for tradition and innovation, a place where both western technology and traditional craftsmanship are practised. After his years of hard work all over the world, the whole world now comes to his Centre. In combining and cross-fertilizing different cultures, Nketia displays a positive and innovative attitude towards his own culture. His activities in this field fully deserve recognition in the form of the Prince Claus Award.
An award goes to the Indonesian choreographer, dancer and film-maker Sardono W. Kusumo (Solo, 1945) for his work combining traditional and indigenous dance with modern dance techniques and improvisation forms. Sardono: 'My work is a search into the future through the past to recover the essential link between man and nature. I dance the man who has lost his cultural roots, or from whom they have been torn, wandering in our contemporary forest.' Sardono concocts a blend whose ingredients come from a classical training in Javan martial arts and court dancing, and from contemporary notions of theatre. His remarkable efforts to preserve and combine a wide range of styles and traditions have produced fascinating and ingenious performances which have been greeted with worldwide acclaim. Sardono regards dance as a continuous process of innovation in which elements foreign to dance can inseminate his work. Sardono's search for man's place in his cultural and natural environment sometimes culminates in personal activism. An example is his use of indigenous communities in his choreographies as a means of drawing attention to the Indonesian rain forests and those who live there. 'Dancer-philosopher' Sardono deserves recognition for his pioneering cross-cultural research and dance repertoire, and for his engagement in social issues.
The Costa Rican, Chilean-born architect Bruno Stagno (Santiago de Chili, 1943) receives an award for his efforts to combine concepts of tropical architecture with those of international contemporary architecture, and for eveloping a personal, syncretic style which is stimulated and put into practice at the Institute for Tropical Architecture in San Jos,, of which he is the founder. Stagno seeks combinations of old and new architecture and correspondences between different architectural traditions. He has worked as an independent architect since 1973. At the Institute of Tropical Architecture, founded in 1994 (and formally registered under Costa Rican law in 1996), a few projects aimed at the preservation of tropical architecture have been realised. Stagno hopes to initiate more projects and stimulate international exchange and debate in order to further the development of his Institute of Tropical Architecture. The Fund expresses its appreciation of this initiative in the form of an award for Stagno.
Jim Supangkat (1950), Indonesian art critic and curator, receives an award for his significant contribution to the development and promotion of contemporary fine arts in Indonesia, and for his role in the Indonesian art-theoretical debate. Originally an artist, Jim Supangkat later became a critic and curator. He is one of the few stimulators and propagators of modern and contemporary art in Indonesia, and his activities have given tremendous support to Indonesian artists and art. Supangkat curated exhibitions of modern Indonesian art for the Brisbane (Australia) Triennial of 1996, the Indonesian Contemporary Art show of 1991 in San Francisco USA), Modern Indonesian Art in the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, in 1993, and in 1995 in South Africa, at the Johannesburg Biennial. He has also written numerous articles for various publications and magazines. Supangkat's views as an art critic and theorist should be seen in an Indonesian context, in which they are strikingly fresh and independent. Supangkat endeavours to place different cultural movements and developments in a single framework. At home and abroad he has been largely responsible for highlighting and developing contemporary Indonesian art and the art debate. It is first and foremost for widening the scope of that discussion that the Prince Claus Fund elected to present an award to Jim Supangkat.
The Tunisian historian Adbdeljelil Temimi (Kairouan, 1938) receives the Prince Claus Award for his work on behalf of cultural appreciation and exchange, focused on the history of Ottoman culture in the Arab world. Temimi has distinguished himself by the tireless energy with which he organises conferences and issues publications in his professional field. His research into Ottoman architecture and culture in North Africa are particularly deserving of recognition - the subject is not very popular in Arab countries, because it recalls Ottoman domination. Temimi wishes to build bridges between Arabic, Turkish and south-east European historians and cultural historians. The Fund sets great store by this cultural exchange between intellectuals and scientists who would otherwise not normally seek mutual contact. Accessing the so-called 'zones of silence' is of great importance in the Fund's opinion. Temimi works from his institute 'La Fondation Temimi pour la Recherche Scientifique et l'Information' (FTERSI), based in Zaghouan, Tunisia, where he establishes contacts between many different people and mentalities.
An award goes to Ernest Wamba-dia-Wamba (1942, Sundi-Lutete, Congo), philosopher in the history Department of the University of Dar es-Salaam, Tanzania, for his scholarly contribution to the development of African philosophy and for sparking off the philosophical debate on social themes in Africa. Wamba-dia-Wamba is one of the few African philosophers of stature to have remained in Africa to work. In 1992 he became president of the Senegal-based CODESRIA, (Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa), which he directed with great enthusiasm and wisdom. Under his leadership the Council, which also receives one of this year's Prince Claus Awards, developed into an inspirational network. Wamba-dia-Wamba has taught at various universities, including Cambridge. Wherever he went, he left a lasting impression of scholarship and modesty. Wamba-dia-Wamba has published a large number of articles and books. His publications have been instrumental in stimulating philosophical debate in the African continent. The Fund pays tribute to all these achievements, as well to as the fact that while Wamba-dia-Wamba espouses modernisation, he stresses the importance of African tradition.
The Prince Claus Fund regards it as a privilege and a pleasure to acknowledge the achievements of these award winners. It is our sincere hope and believe that the Prince Claus Awards will enable them to extend the scope of their activities. Recognition of their achievements can stimulate international cultural exchange and promote knowledge, quality and diversity in the field of culture and development.
The 1997 Award Committee of the Prince Claus Fund
Adriaan van der Staay
Lolle Nauta
Anil Ramdas
