This year the Committee went in search of candidates specifically in countries which have not previously featured in the awards. Consequently, a majority of the awards have gone to new regions. During the selection process it became apparent that some regions, such as Central Asia, are not easy to penetrate: there continue to be ‘zones of silence’.
And there is a reason for this silence. Some of the awards are going to people who are subjected to extremely unfavourable circumstances and who starkly present their country’s problems in their work. In these instances, the Fund serves as a cultural Amnesty International. This ‘category’ includes a musician who is barely able to continue work in the music-hostile environment he lives in.
It is also striking to note how cultural development is advanced by certain journals which expose the local situation to an international context. In this respect, a young writer from Peru was nominated for the creative way in which he uses the medium of television to stimulate interest in national and international literature.
Furthermore, this year the Awards Committee wanted to honour a number of pioneers in Syria, the Philippines and Sudan, who dedicate their lives to the intellectual and artistic development of their countries.
Added emphasis was also given to the idea of interculturality: building bridges between cultures. This is a distinctive feature of the Fund’s policy.
The Caribbean is a hotspot for interculturality and the birthplace of much cultural innovation in music, dance and design. Much consideration went into deciding upon the most appropriate way of honouring this region: this year the Principal Prince Claus Award will once again be shared. Both award winners clearly work in the same field, but represent different aspects of it. The selection of these two laureates expresses the theme of this year’s awards, carnival, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The other award winners once again indicate the breadth of the terrain covered by the Prince Claus Fund.
Forty candidacies were studied. The Fund approached experts all over the world for nominations and for second opinions. In addition to the considerations presented above, the Committee also adhered to the same criteria that have underpinned the Prince Claus Awards over the last four years: the Prince Claus Awards acknowledge exceptional achievements in the field of culture and development. The awards are presented to artists and intellectuals, and to organisations who are engaged in culture. Excellence is a major criterion in the selection of the award recipients. Another decisive factor is ‘surplus value’: the positive effects of the work of a laureate in the wider cultural or social field. The Committee commends innovation, surprise and perseverance.
The Principal Award of EUR 100,000 has been awarded to two laureates against the background of the theme ‘Carnival’: Stichting Zomercarnaval (Summer Carnival Foundation) and designer Peter Minshall.
In the first place the award acknowledges the significance of carnival as an expression of culture. Carnival is one of those festivals in the world in which the whole community takes part in a cultural release of suppressed dreams. The boundaries of everyday life are crossed by means of disguise and masquerades, the reversal of male and female roles, by switching high and low, by enlarging one's own significance and corporeality, and by acting out myths. The intoxication of carnival offers a temporary release from the limitations of normal existence and thus from its frustrations. The award wishes to acknowledge this positive aspect of carnival.
Secondly, the European carnival has spread to other parts of the world and undergone an explosive development. From Rio de Janeiro to Trinidad to New Orleans, carnival has proved a vehicle for cultural regeneration. Traditions from cultures other than the European culture of origin are often characteristic of the form carnival exhibits today. Music, dance, costume, masks, all hark back to African and American Indian rituals and forms. New forms of presentation are conceived and especially designed for carnival. There are contributions from creolised culture, such as soca, originally brought by Indian migrants. It is this innovation and creolisation which deserves recognition.
In the third place, carnival – especially from the Caribbean – has become an important cultural export phenomenon. Borne by the migration from the South, the rejuvenated and creolised carnival has established itself convincingly in the North, in New York, in London and in Rotterdam. Initially as migrant culture, but increasingly as an independent environment for further cultural innovation and creolisation. In London's Notting Hill and in the centre of Rotterdam these carnivals have expanded to become manifestations which are among the largest cultural events of the year.
More generally, carnival in this third, regenerated form can be regarded as a living expression of culture from the South in the North. It renews itself and is constantly combining with other elements of culture, for example, from Africa or from Europe itself. This carnival is an example of the transmission of culture as the bearer of cultural development. Carnival creates a bridge between cultures and a bridge between North and South, across which culture is exchanged in both directions.
Given the sketched importance of carnival as an expression of culture, as an example of innovation and combination, as a contribution from the South to the North, and as a bridge for the transmission of culture in the future, the two recipients of the Principal 2001 Prince Claus Award are being recognised for their achievements in artistic innovation and the building of intercultural bridges through carnival.
The Summer Carnival Foundation, which was initiated by the Antillean community, recently held the seventeenth Solero Summer Carnival in the centre of Rotterdam. The 1.75 km procession was led by the Carnival Queen, Sandy Abma, who is originally from the Cape Verde Islands. More than 2500 people took part - Antillians, Colombians, Cape Verdeans, Brazilians, Surinamese, Dutch, and other communities and nationalities all celebrated this multicultural and international exchange in groups, or individually. By awarding the Rotterdam Summer Carnival the Prince Claus Fund is explicitly acknowledging the positive contribution of Antillean culture to Dutch society.
The Rotterdam Summer Carnival has never gained regular access to the official cultural funds in the Netherlands, neither for the professional nor the amateur arts. Nevertheless, during this period it has become the largest cultural manifestation in the Netherlands, attracting 760,000 visitors from all over the country and abroad in 2001. It is impossible to imagine the Dutch cultural calendar without it. It has shown itself to be an open intercultural manifestation, which seeks to encourage co-operation with others rather than to stress its own identity. The Rotterdam Summer Carnival offers room to migrant cultures and maintains close contact with developments in the Caribbean.
The Prince Claus Fund has taken into consideration that the Summer Carnival has long wanted to be in a position to respond to the desire of other carnivals - Notting Hill (London), Curaçao, the Cape Verde Islands, and others - to strengthen the cultural ties with the Rotterdam Carnival. Until now it has been very difficult to respond to this wish for financial reasons. But this year the Carnival Queens from Curaçao, Aruba and the Cape Verde Islands all took part in Rotterdam. The award should be seen as a basis on which to strengthen innovative and qualitative contacts with the South.
Carnivals are natural cradles for new design talents. The artist Peter Minshall personifies this kind of innovation. Born in 1941 in Georgetown, Guyana, he grew up in Trinidad, where as a designer of masquerades, or ‘mases’, he brought renewal to the visual vocabulary of Caribbean carnival throughout the world. He raised the look and theme of carnival to a level of artistic excellence. He shares his creativity with his colleagues in his ‘ideas factory’, the Callaloo Company which, besides the annual mas band, also produces theatre productions and performances.
The 2001 Prince Claus laureates make a difference to the world. May the awards make a difference to them, and offer new opportunities.
The 2001 Prince Claus Awards Committee
Adriaan van der Staay, Charles Correa, Mai Ghoussoub, Gaston Kaboré, Gerardo Mosquera and Bruno Stagno
