And the winners are:Â

Fien Troch • Film The director’s second film, Unspoken, tells the story of a couple torn apart by the disappearance of their daughter several years before. The film opens in Belgium later this month but has already featured at film festivals in San Sebastian, Ghent and Toronto. The Culture Awards jury, which included filmmakers Robbe De Hert and Marc Didden, described Troch as “a genre unto herself: no-one makes film like Fien Troch, and Fien Troch makes films like no-one else.”

Willy Linthout • Strips He draws the strip that comedian/actor Urbanus writes (and stars in). What the jury called Linthout’s “atypical drawing technique” is a riot of big noses, fat women, bare arses and fart sounds, fitting perfectly with the strip’s bawdy, scatological humour. This is art beloved of small boys and detested by parents and teachers – which is as it should be. He also recently published the seventh and eighth parts of the serial graphic novel The Year of the Elephant, about a man putting his life together again after the suicide of his son.

Anne Provoost • Prose The Antwerp author began as a writer of novels for young people (she herself began writing and illustrating her own work at the age of four) before moving on to adult fiction. Her latest novel is In de zon kijken (Looking Into the Sun), which the jury said is “of a fine sensitivity and extraordinarily poetic”. The prose award is only given every three years and this year reads: “Anne Provoost belongs definitively to the list of our great prose writers.”

Ina Rilke • Translation Born in Mozambique, Rilke has translated 18 works by Dutch-language authors into English, including Erwin Mortier’s Shutterspeed, which last year made the long-list of the Independent newspaper’s Foreign Fiction Prize.

Peter Scholliers • Culinary arts Known as the first academic in Flanders (he is a history PhD) to turn his attention to culinary matters and food history, Scholliers teaches at the Free University of Brussels (VUB).

Flip Kowlier • Music According to the jury, singer-songwriter Kowlier is “as single-minded as he is multi-faceted”. His Dutch-language music ranges from pop to reggae to chanson.

Randi De Vlieghe • Youth theatre The dancer, choreographer and theatre director works in pure dance as well as youth theatre. He is described as “a nomad in the landscape of stagecraft, who stops off at places that interest him.”

Wouter Steenhaut • Heritage A historian who helped set up the Socialist workers’ movement archive and museum in Antwerp and Ghent, Steenhaut is described as “a pioneer in the cultural heritage field.”

Joëlle Tuerlinckx • Visual arts Conceptual artist Tuerlinckx uses a minimum of materials and treatments in her installations to “create a dialogue with the space in which she finds herself.” The jury noted her enormous influence on young artists and curators alike.

Meg Stuart • Stage The only non Flemish-born prize-winner this year, this American choreographer and founder of the Damaged Goods dance company has been working in Brussels for the last 17 years. Her work, the judges said, “explores the uncertain boundaries between ourselves and our environment.”

Nedda El-Asmar • Design This silversmith was also voted Belgian Designer of the Year in 2007 and enjoyed a huge show last year at the Design Museum Gent. She was nominated for a Culture Award in 2006, but this is her first win. Her work, according to the jury, “radiates tenderness and poetry, as well as humour and fantasy.”

The Last Post • Volunteer organisation The only collective prize-winner this year is this West Flemish group of buglers that performs the Last Post every day at the First World War memorial Menin Gate, a ceremony that has taken place since 1928. The members also serve in the volunteer fire brigade.

Sigiswald Kuijken • General cultural achievement Violist, violinist and conductor, Kuijken is the first classical musician to win a Culture Award. He formed the Baroque orchestra La Petite Bande in 1972 and since then has worked to promote the cause of authentic period performance. He formed the Kuijken String Quartet in 1986 and teaches at the conservatories in the Hague and Brussels. He “ensures the necessary artistic oxygen in a sector labouring under the weight of outdated constructs and traditions,” the jury said.

However Kuijken had no sooner received his award from the minister than news emerged that a committee advising Anciaux had recommended cutting off subsidies to La Petite Bande for the period 2010-2012. While Anciaux was praising the ensemble as “ambassadors for the best of Flemish art”, his music committee was describing them as “relying on the successes of yesteryear” and “not doing enough to renovate themselves”.

online
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