Speech by Princess Laurentien at the ECF Princess Margriet Award for Culture, Brussel
Your Royal Highnesses, distinguished laureates, Excellencies, friends,
We are delighted that you're all with us today to celebrate the seventh ECF Princess Margriet Award for Culture. The power and relevance of culture for an inclusive and democratic Europe has of course always been the raison d'être of the European Cultural Foundation. But it feels that the importance and urgency of investing in Europe as a cultural concept seems to increase every year… culture is needed now more than ever to respond to questions of freedom of speech, tolerance and solidarity, at a time when debates unexpectedly become bloodbaths, soul searching at home turns into dangerous life choices in far away places and values we had come to take for granted, are under pressure and thus become precious again.
With urgency comes the responsibility to act. This is why this award ceremony is not a free lunch, so to speak…We feel you are all part of a diverse, dedicated and much needed community of leading individuals and organisations from across Europe who take the urgency of investing in culture seriously. With your presence, we hope that you commit yourself to taking inspiration and examples from artists and cultural change makers into your own sphere of work, be this inside or outside the culture sector. Culture as we see it, is not an isolated force. You are all multipliers, helping to make that happen.
This year we honour two extraordinary collectives: the Visual Culture Research Centre from Kiev and the Athens Biennale. The brave and visionary individuals behind both collectives began their work well before the recent crises and before both countries became at the forefront of our minds. They have maintained their work with great courage and skill in the face of personal and collective tragedy, reminding us how culture can create a common ground, a place for progressive visions.
Both initiatives stand out for their own quality, dedication and vision. They stand for creating the space for open-mindedness, dialogue and social change. They also symbolise broader, more fundamental questions we're struggling to find answers to, such as:
- the balance between what we share and what makes us different; and
- the very notion of 'community' in relation to Europe.
Can culture solve these fundamental questions? No it won't. There is not one answer to such complex issues. Because they are, by their very nature, moving targets - geographically, in time and through changing contexts. What culture can do - and does - is put the issues on the table, visualising the different angles, opinions and facts pertaining to the issues at hand and then creatively visualising the very core of the problem and alternative solutions.
So if I take these two fundamental questions…
First, our struggle to find the right balance between our commonalities and diversity: what do we stress - our shared heritage or the fact that we are also quite different from each other? In the meaningful public dialogue we must have about Europe, it's vital we don't avoid uncomfortable truths about inequality among Europe's immigrants and ethnic minorities. What matters is that we learn to deal with different visions of the truth and that we learn how to treat each other in the face of these differences. Culture can help us do just that - certainly against the definition of Sociology Professor Pascal Gielen, who describes culture as "a shared frame of reference and as something that lends meaning to people's lives". His book - No Culture, No Europe, was launched today here in BOZAR. Recommended reading!
And then secondly, the question of communities… The issue is not whether Europe, but what Europe. Europe is a reality…. Some 60 years ago, the ECF's founders envisaged cultural expression as a force for a more inclusive Europe. At the time, there was perhaps the need to 'sell' a different face of Europe - to remind citizens, business leaders and politicians that Europe is not just an economic community, but also a cultural one. Since then, the very notion of 'community' has changed. There is an exhilarating borderlessness to today's Europe, well beyond the policy intention of 'ever-closer union' of the European project.
Young Europeans across all nations are embracing new means of communication that even the most authoritarian regimes struggle to police. And new types of content too, ushering in a new politics where people have their voices heard directly. Borders are shifting even where geographic borders remain fixed. We should not overlook the unquantifiable currency of cultural interaction and the way people organise themselves and relate to one another outside institutions, heightened by the uncontrollable forces that the digital channels of communication and interaction offer us.
This new notion of communities also means that the role of the ECF is evolving - from 'marketeer' of Europe as a cultural project to facilitator of such powerful, creative and autonomous processes of community-building. We wish to be a catalyst, not the issue owner.
This year's laureates are change-makers for their communities, positively transforming the quality of public life, from the grassroots to the institutional level: tapping into an economy of sharing and community-building. They spur on others to realise that the challenge of democracy in Europe is how to channel people's passion, expertise and resources into complex, long-term projects that improve the lives of all.
A few thoughts to end with….
The shocking developments of recent months underline once more the importance of education and the importance of instilling hope and aspirations in Europeans, and young people in particular. There is a great danger of plurality becoming polarised: of an 'Us and Them' attitude taking hold. But since it's a matter of 'Us and Us' - which Europe is - we are that diversity. And freedom of speech is about debating differences meaningfully. The right to express opinion forms the very basis of democracy, even if - and this is the most challenging condition of free speech - we disagree with what is being said.
All this to say that culture is, more than ever before, not a nice to have but a need to have as a precondition for an inclusive, democratic Europe.
I wish you an inspiring gathering today. And the real question is, what will you do with the inspiration from tomorrow.
Thank you.