Prince Claus Fund Journal #16 Flowers in collaboration with Bidoun

The “Flowers” issue is a celebration of the frivolous, the camp, the martyred. Taking both literal and metaphorical flowers as our inspiration, Bidoun has commissioned its contributors around the world to think about the 'floral,' broadly defined. Resulting is a veritable ecology of communists, virtuous outcasts, and beauty queens. Long pieces include: Sana'a Mehaidli, the "bride of the south," she is often recognized as the world's first female suicide bomber; Bassem Feghali: Lebanese national icon and cross-dresser extraordinaire; Dodi, Princess Di, and the Arabization of the House of Windsor; the now defunct Afro-Asian avant garde literary magazine Lotus; faking virginity and more. This issue will also host specially commissioned artist projects by Yto Barrada and Shirana Shahbazi, while also boasting written pieces on the Tagore Museum in India, the new Lebanese comic magazine Samandal, as well as theSoul Messengers--Black Hebrew Israelites who once settled in the Israeli desert.

Culture and Nature, 2009 theme of the Prince Claus Fund

‘For some time now, there has been increasing concern about mankind’s negative impact on the state of nature. Our different cultures have evolved a range of insights on the interrelationship of nature and human life, and the Prince Claus Fund believes that these diverse views, expressed through powerful voices in the arts, can offer new directions and possibilities for positive change in the global debate on the environment. Cultural productions are complex outcomes of dynamic interactions between nature, society and the individual, and in view of the rapid destruction of the natural habitat on which all of us depend, cultural productions have a major role to play in creating alternatives. The links between culture and nature are manifested in the role of nature in cultural production, in the ways that culture shapes the natural environment, and in nature’s presence as inspiration and metaphor in cultural productions.’

 

 

 

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The Journal

The aim of the Prince Claus Fund Journal is to inform its worldwide network about the Fund’s theme’s and activities. The Journal is distributed in an edition of 6000 copies to the Fund’s target groups throughout the world.

Introduction written by Els van der Plas