Fukuoka Prize - Laureates for 2009

	Grand Prize
Augustin BERQUE
Director of Studies, School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (l'Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales: EHESS) France / Cultural Geography

At age 4, at his family’s hometown of Saint-Julien-en-Born, Landes, France (1946)

With his son and daughter, at Shinhama, Miyagi, Japan (1974)

In 1991, at Linxe, Landes, France, while writing Du Geste a la cite [Urban Forms and Social Links in Japan]

    Professor Augustin Berque is one of the leading Japanologists and cultural geographers in France. He has developed philosophical theories about European and Japanese human societies and space/landscape/nature, and established a unique academic concept, Ecoumene. His empirical approach towards Japanese culture has contributed greatly to understanding Japan, and has been internationally praised.
    Professor Berque was born in French Morocco in 1942 and is a third-generation scholar, his father and grandfather both being academics. He studied geography and Chinese at the University of Paris, and received a Ph.D. Coming to Japan for the first time in 1969, he has since then stayed in Japan intermittently for a total of more than a decade, during which period he has combined a thorough understanding of the Japanese value structure with a profound philosophical understanding of the fundamentals of human existence and nature/space - and has thus accumulated a body of research in the field of Japanese Studies - unrivalled in its solidity.
    In his many publications, Professor Berque has introduced a new concept called trajectivite (trajectivity), which means the interactive relationship between culture and nature, between the collective and the individual, and between subjectivity and objectivity in actual societies in Europe and in Japan. Through a profound reading of‘Fudo’(1935) by Tetsuro Watsuji(1889-1960), he presented a theory about ethnicity and trajectivite by combining geography and ontology: the existence of humanity in Japan is chiselled into the country’s nature, and the interactive coexistence of the two is indeed Japanese fudo (environmental milieu). Fudo is not simply the natural environment, but constitutes the foundation of the societies within which people live; and through the interactions between nature, space and history, changes occur and fudo will be further transformed. With his keen insight, Professor Berque points out the social characteristics common throughout Japan in the spiritual, social and physical spaces which compose the overall order which is maintained by society. In his research, Watsuji's fudo theory is understood in connection with the German philosopher Martin Heidegger's (1889-1976) phenomenology, taking a comparative approach to European and Japanese thought. As his theoretical framework evolved, he developed a critique of Rene Descartes(1596-1650) and so established an independent field of ‘fudo studies', through which he has been reassessing Japan's place in global history.
    With this as his foundation, Professor Berque has tackled current issues such as landscape, environment and communality, applying his profound knowledge and coherent logic, and the message implicit in his universally-relevant paradigm has earned much respect.
    Besides his many achievements in Japanese Studies, Professor Berque has made a significant contribution to cultural exchange between Japan and France as one of the most pro-Japanese French intellectuals, including his work as Dean of Nichifutsu Kaikan (Maison Franco-Japonaise) in Tokyo for four years from 1984.
    Professor Augustin Berque has opened up the new and distinctive field of ‘fudo studies', has constructed entirely new theories, and has presented both to the Japanese and to other people in the world a fresh perspective from which to understand Japanese culture scientifically. For this great contribution, he is truly worthy of the Grand Prize of the Fukuoka Prize.

"Fudo and Japan: towards a Global Perspective"

Prof. Augustin Berque, Grand Prize laureate
13:30 - 15:30, Sat., September 19
IMS Hall（with a seating capacity of 400）

*Mr. Augustin Berque's Public Forum has already reached full capacity.

	Academic Prize
Partha CHATTERJEE
Professor of Political Science, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta Professor of Anthropology and Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University, New York India / Political Science, History

At age 20 (1968)

At the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (Jan., 2006)

At a seminar held in Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (Jan., 2009)

    Professor Partha Chatterjee is a political scientist/historian from India. He has continuously raised penetrating questions from the viewpoint of Asia and of developing countries. He is especially well known for his leading role in the‘Subaltern Studies’group, which aims at revealing the history of ordinary people in South Asia, and also for his use of‘post colonial criticism’in order to establish the previously neglected academic field of the‘politics of the masses’.
    Professor Chatterjee was born in Kolkata, India in 1947. After he acquired a Ph.D.in politics at the University of Rochester, USA, in 1972, he returned to India and began to work at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSS). He served as the Director there for 10 years from 1997.
    Subaltern Studies is an intellectual movement which was developed by Guha, Pandey and Spivak, and which undertook the challenging mission of formulating‘a narrative of the history of the masses’. In the background of its creation were the national disturbances of the 1970s and 1980s, during which ordinary people as well as intellectuals asked fundamental questions, such as whether national independence had really‘liberated the people’. To seek for an answer to such questions, Professor Chatterjee and his colleagues have tried to revive the history of the silent majority which had not been included in the traditional framework of historical studies and political arguments. During their research, they created new concepts, arguments and methodologies.
    Professor Chatterjee's research work, focused on Subaltern Studies, sent a shockwave through Western academia, and this extended to other areas of the world including Latin America and Africa, where it has had a significant influence. This can be seen as a landmark work because of its massive impact on the process of reconsidering and restructuring the asymmetrical power relationship through which Western academia has held unquestioned power over other regions.
    Using the CSSS as a focal point, Professor Chatterjee has also been very efficient in organizing ambitious joint research projects and in educating young academics. Through such efforts, he has established a basis for academic research which is independent from the West, and has secured a space free from state control and from political authority, where freedom of speech is assured.
    In the course of his life, Professor Partha Chatterjee has given birth to a unique conception of freedom, which is embodied in scholarly research focused on Asia, and has thus contributed a fresh and fascinating academic discipline to the world. He is therefore worthy of the Academic Prize of the Fukuoka Prize.

"Voicing the History of the Voiceless"

Prof. Partha Chatterjee, Academic Prize laureate
13:00 - 14:30, Sun., September 20
IMS Hall（with a seating capacity of 400）

*Mr. Partha Chatterjee's Public Forum has already reached full capacity.

	Arts and Culture Prize
MIKI Minoru
Composer Japan / Music Composition

Taking a curtain call with Conductor Kurt Masur at the world premiere of‘Symphony for Two Worlds’（1981）

Perfecting his score at home office (1991)

Tale of Genji, commissioned and world premiered by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, USA (2000)

    Mr. MIKI Minoru is a composer renowned not only in Japan but also throughout Asia, and his vast output, including the‘Operatic Cycle on Japanese History’has won international praise. While taking the lead in modernizing and globalizing Japanese music, he has made a significant contribution to promoting musical creativity and intercommunication between Japan and Asia and between the East and the West.
    Based on his belief that Japanese culture has always possessed a universal character throughout history, and therefore has a value which deserves to be recognized internationally, he has been engaged, as his lifework, in composing a series of operas which are set in Japan. The most famous of all is the‘Operatic Cycle on Japanese History’(9 parts altogether) including Shunkin sho, which explore the characteristics of each period in Japanese history from the 5th to the 20th centuries. This series includes three works commissioned outside Japan, and is often performed to great acclaim.
    In 1964, with his friends, he founded‘Pro Musica Nipponia’, which presented an entirely new style of musical performance with diverse Japanese musical instruments in concert. This created a great sensation both at home and abroad. Mr. Miki served as artistic director for 20 years at this organization, and produced many musical works. Moreover, in order to make the traditional koto (Japanese zither) more suitable to the expressiveness of modern music, he was involved in the invention of a‘20 stringed koto’which has been further developed into a 21 stringed koto called Niigoto (new koto). He produced more than 160 performances abroad.‘The Theory of Composing for Japanese Instruments’, a compilation of all the composition methodologies for Japanese musical instruments, originally written in Japanese, was translated and published in English and Chinese. The book made it possible for the first time to promote musical composition by using Japanese instruments both inside and outside Japan.
    Mr. Miki is also a pioneer of a musical interchange between Japan, China and Korea. He founded the ‘Orchestra Asia’, the‘Asia Ensemble’, which both consist of the traditional instruments of Asian countries, and many other music performing groups. His initiatives created a new current in the Asian music world, one represented by his opera Ai-en, and opened a new path through which outstanding Asian musicians and composers can reach the global stage.
    As a prolific artist, Mr. Miki has produced a vast numbers of unique music including the popular Marimba Spiritual which has been performed more than ten thousand times throughout the world. His most remarkable works include the ‘Eurasian Trilogy’which combines Eastern and Western orchestration, and the Memory of the Earth which uses a western orchestra together with Asian instruments. Both presented a magnificent world of music where musical instruments from the East and the West came together and mixed harmoniously. In 2006, Mr. Miki inaugurated the‘Hokuto International Music Festival’to provide an occasion for putting his grand idea into practice. He remains very active in his efforts to achieve a‘holy land of the East-West music interchange’.
    The contribution of Mr. Miki through his efforts to put new life into traditional Japanese and Asian music, and through his initiatives towards a creative interchange between Japanese, Asian and Western music, is a most significant one. Therefore he is truly worthy of the Arts and Culture Prize of the Fukuoka Prize.

"The Musical World of Miki Minoru"

Mr. Miki Minoru, Arts and Culture Prize laureate
*Including live musical performances.
16:00 - 18:00, Sun., September 20
Fukuoka Bank Hall(with a seating capacity of 700)

*Mr. Miki Minoru's Public Forum has already reached full capacity.

	Arts and Culture Prize
CAI Guo-Qiang
Contemporary Artist China / Contemporary Art

With classmates at the Shanghai Art Academy, 1984 (Far right)

Being searched by security before entering the launch site on the morning of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Cityscape Fireworks, 2001. [Photo: Courtesy of Cai Studio]

Creating a gunpowder drawing, Bird of Light (2004), at Fireworks by Grucci, Brookhaven, New York, 2004 [Photo: by Chris Smith, courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden]

    Mr. Cai Guo-Qiang is one of the most exciting contemporary artists in the world. He is known for his dynamic art forms and the use of gunpowder explosion and fireworks in these. He continues to create new possibilities in the field of modern art with his very original choice of materials and techniques which enables his work to develop on a cosmic scale. His art work, which incorporates not only internationalism and universalism but also a deep philosophy based on traditional Chinese world-views, has won a global reputation.
    Mr. Cai was born in 1957 in the once prosperous harbor city of Quanzhou, Fujian Province. After spending his childhood during the Cultural Revolution, he studied stage design at the Shanghai Drama Institute in the early 1980s. His pursuit of a means of artistic expression free from any conventional method led him to the use of gunpowder, which fascinated him for its inherent spontaneity and for its double aspect combining creativity and destructiveness.
    He lived in Japan for 9 years from 1986, and there his art became the focus of public attention for its use of gunpowder explosion directly on washi (Japanese paper). This led to his involvement in the ‘Exceptional Passage: Chinese Avant-Garde Artists Exhibition’ in Fukuoka, and also the ‘Project for Extraterrestrials’, a series of large-scale outdoor events using explosives.
    Since 1995, he has lived in New York. He has received invitations to participate in art exhibitions throughout the world, and has been awarded many prizes including the Venice Biennale International Prize (Golden Lion) in 1999. His reputation was firmly established by then. He carried out various performances with fireworks in different cities of the world, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Cityscape Fireworks in Shanghai in 2001. Above all, he produced a firework display of epic proportions for the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games which was televised globally and left a deep impression in many people's memories.
    Mr. Cai's art is distinguished by his endless hunger for innovative artistic methodology on one side, and also by its foundation upon a view of world very different from that of the West, a perspective which can be seen in the integration with Chinese cultural elements such as gunpowder and Chinese medicine into his art, and also in the way that fengshui philosophy is reflected in it. His work, rooted in a unique sense of history and cosmology, reveals a profound philosophical ideology. The world which his work represents has a wide social expanse beyond artistic spectacle, abstract concepts and an individualistic methodology, and addresses a variety of the current problems faced by humanity such as the nuclear and environmental issues.
    Mr. Cai Guo-Qiang, in his practice as an artist, has always been ahead of international artistic society in the originality with which he expresses his spectacular vision of mankind and the universe, while at the same time breaking down existing artistic concepts. He is indeed a worthy person for the Arts and Cultures Prize of the Fukuoka Prize with his acute awareness of contemporary issues, with the originality and universality of his creative power.

"Art: What can it do?"

Mr. Cai Guo-Qiang, Arts and Culture Prize laureate
18:30 - 20:30, Wed., September 16
ACROS Fukuoka B2 Event Hall（with a seating capacity of 350）

* The DATE AND VENUE have CHANGED; Those who have already applied for the event will once again be asked to confirm their intention to attend by mail.

*Mr. Cai Guo-Qiang's Public Forum has already reached full capacity.





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