Trinida­di­an artist and cu­ra­tor Christo­pher Co­zi­er is one of 11 in­ter­na­tion­al win­ners of the pres­ti­gious Prince Claus Award, pre­sent­ed by the Nether­lands-based Prince Claus Fund. Through its an­nu­al awards, the fund ho­n­ours out­stand­ing artists, thinkers and or­gan­i­sa­tions whose cul­tur­al and artis­tic ac­tions have had a pos­i­tive im­pact on their coun­tries' de­vel­op­ment.The of­fi­cial press re­lease de­scribes Co­zi­er (born in 1959, in Port-of-Spain) as "a mul­ti-tal­ent­ed cul­tur­al ac­ti­va­tor with a pro­found im­pact on cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment across the Caribbean. His in­formed and in­ci­sive art­work in di­verse me­dia re­flects his deep un­der­stand­ing of Trinidad's past and present, and be­yond this, he men­tors and sup­ports lo­cal and re­gion­al artists, pro­vid­ing cri­tiques, es­tab­lish­ing di­a­logues with them across vir­tu­al space and ini­ti­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties.

"A piv­otal agent in the evo­lu­tion of con­tem­po­rary art dis­course in the Caribbean, Co­zi­er was a ma­jor con­trib­u­tor (1998�2010) to the sem­i­nal jour­nal Small Axe."As both writer and ed­i­tor, his com­mit­ment to re­search and crit­i­cal in­quiry ex­pand­ed the di­a­logue be­tween tra­di­tion­al aca­d­e­m­ic dis­ci­plines and the vi­su­al, and helped to lib­er­ate lo­cal dis­course from pre­dictable tropes and stereo­types."For more than 25 years, Co­zi­er has been run­ning artists' work­shops, ex­changes and res­i­den­cies link­ing lo­cal artists with in­ter­na­tion­al prac­ti­tion­ers."Among many ac­tiv­i­ties, he was in­stru­men­tal in es­tab­lish­ing an ex­hi­bi­tion con­text for new me­dia. In 2006, he co-found­ed Al­ice Yard as an in­for­mal venue for cre­ative ex­per­i­ment, ex­change and de­bate. Lo­cat­ed in the back­yard of a house in Port-of-Spain, it hosts artists' projects, per­for­mances, mu­sic events, read­ings, dis­cus­sions and film screen­ings, as well as of­fer­ing liv­ing quar­ters for vis­it­ing artists, a mul­ti­pur­pose stu­dio and ex­hi­bi­tion space, and a re­hearsal space for young bands.

"Co­zi­er's ad­vo­ca­cy of Caribbean art on glob­al lev­els in­cludes co-cu­rat­ing Para­mari­bo Span (Suri­name, 2010) and Wrestling with the Im­age: Caribbean In­ter­ven­tions (Wash­ing­ton, DC, 2011) which fea­tured 36 artists from 14 coun­tries of the An­glo­phone, Fran­coph­o­ne and Dutch-speak­ing Caribbean; the on­line cat­a­logue he pro­duced for the lat­ter show is used as a teach­ing tool at sev­er­al uni­ver­si­ties. He is al­so cur­rent­ly a 2014 satel­lite ad­vi­so­ry cu­ra­tor to SITE San­ta Fe."The awards press re­lease con­cludes: "Christo­pher Co­zi­er is ho­n­oured for his in­flu­en­tial role and open in­clu­sive ap­proach in de­vel­op­ing art and cul­ture across the Caribbean; for self­less­ly and gen­er­ous­ly cre­at­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties for oth­ers, in­spir­ing and men­tor­ing younger gen­er­a­tions; for his dis­ci­plined com­mit­ment to in­tel­lec­tu­al in­quiry and crit­i­cal dis­course."

The 11 win­ners of the 2013 Prince Claus Awards will at­tend a pre­sen­ta­tion cer­e­mo­ny in Am­s­ter­dam in De­cem­ber.