Independent research agency Forensic Architecture win another award

Following a Turner Prize nomination last week, architectural investigative agency Forensic Architecture has won the tenth annual European Cultural Foundation’s Award for Culture along with Polish cultural platform Borderland.

Forensic Architecture is a research group working out of Goldsmiths, University of London. The collective is comprised of international architects, artists, filmmakers, scientists, political theorists, investigative journalists, students and citizens who together use architectural understanding and new mythologies to reconstruct sites of trauma.

“Our evidence is presented in political and legal forums, truth commissions, courts, and human rights reports,” Forensic Architecture explains. “We also undertake historical and theoretical examinations of the history and present status of forensic practices in articulating notions of public truth.”

The European Cultural Foundation Princess Margriet Award for Culture celebrates “courageous citizens using culture as a force for positive change”. Both Forensic Architecture and Borderland will receive the award at a ceremony at the Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam on 16th May 2018. The awards will be given by Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands.

Katherine Watson, Director of the European Cultural Foundation, commented: “The ECF Princess Margriet Award for Culture highlights the change-making capacity of culture. Our laureates are courageous citizens whose social energy gives rise to alternative stories and opens up space for learning, living together and questioning the fundamental nature of democracy.”

Eyal Weizman from Forensic Architecture added: “We are delighted that the European Cultural Foundation has awarded us the 2018 Princess Margriet Award for Culture in recognition of Forensic Architecture’s evidentiary work. It is important that — alongside the judicial and political — the cultural domain is acknowledged as a crucial arena of struggle for the exposure of the truth about the world around us.”

Both Borderland and Forensic Architecture will receive 25,000 Euros along with an award designed by Dutch artist Jan Rothuizen.