deBuren

In February, the European Cultural Foundation, presents the prestigious ECF Routes Prinses Margriet Award for Cultural Diversity in Brussels to two visual artists. This year visual artists Šejla Kamerić (Sarajevo) and Kutluğ Ataman (Istanbul) have been awarded the prestigious prize.

One day after the award ceremony, deBuren and ECF invite Kamerić and Ataman to introduce the audience to their work, their life and their take on diversity in Europe. These internationally renowned artists present a selection of their oeuvre and talk with moderator Dirk Snauwaert (Wiels) and the audience.

The Routes Princess Margriet Award is an annual event celebrating the achievements of artists, activists, and thinkers who help us understand and appreciate Europe's cultural diversity. The Routes Award invites us all to look anew at the changing world around us through the powerful lens of arts and culture.

The Routes jury praised Sarajevo-born Visual artist and film maker Šejla Kamerić's (Sarajevo, ª1976) originality and independence of mind. Her work tackles prejudice while valuing the intimacy of ‘home' and memory. The iconic work, Bosnian Girl, shows Kamerić herself staring out at the viewer above a piece of racist, misogynist graffiti left behind by a supposedly peacekeeping UN soldier. Her art has been praised for ‘exposing the fracture within the broader construction of European identity'.

Istanbul-born Kutluğ Ataman (Istanbul, º1961) is a celebrated filmmaker and artist whose work challengingly records the narratives and biographies of diverse individuals. A work singled out for praise by the Routes jury is Küba, an installation showing interviews conducted in a shanty town outside Istanbul. The people there recount their experiences both ordinary and extraordinary. Ataman's work demonstrates the ability to self-invent beyond the limiting frame of a typecast identity. In his own words, the artist assumes the role of a ‘sculptor who sculpts stories'.


Programme
19:00: opening en screening of the films Glück (Šejla Kamerić) and Journey to the Moon (Kutluğ Ataman).

Conversation with Dirk Snauwaert

22:00: Closing and reception

In collaboration with the European Cultural Foundation and KVS in Brussels. This project is supported by EUNIC Brussels.