The Goethe Medal Prize Winners 2016
The Goethe Medal is bestowed on outstanding persons who have done a great service on behalf of nurturing the German language and international cultural exchange.
Since 1955, the Goethe Institute has bestowed the Goethe Medal for special dedication to fostering the German language outside the country and to advancing international cultural exchange. Since that time a total of 341 outstanding figures from a total of 63 countries have been granted this honour. The focal theme of this year’s awards ceremony, which will take place on 28 August, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s birthday, is the “Migration of Cultures – Cultures of Migration”. The three prize-winners are Akinbode Akinbiyi, Yurii Andrukhovych and David Lordkipanidze, who all champion intercultural exchange between their countries of origin and Germany.
Akinbode Akinbiyi
“What fascinates me are the contrasts in Africa’s big cities,” says Akinbode Akinbiyi. Since the 1990s, the photographer, who was born in 1946 in Oxford, has lived in Berlin and is considered one of the most important artistic intermediaries between Germany and Sub-Saharan Africa. He studied in Nigeria, England and Germany. His photographs show everyday life in major cities such as Cairo, Johannesburg and Kinshasa as well as the migration movements there. In 2017 he will be presenting selected works at the documenta 14 in Kassel.
Yurii Andrukhovych
Since the “Orange Revolution” of 2004 the Ukrainian writer, poet and translator has been regarded internationally as the voice of Ukraine. And he is most certainly an intercultural ambassador. Alongside translating literary classics by Rainer Maria Rilke or William Shakespeare into Ukrainian, Andrukhovych, who was born in West Ukraine in 1960, focusses in his own works in particular on migratory and migration movements in Europe.
David Lordkipanidze
After gaining a doctorate in 1992 in Moscow and academic positions in Paris, Lisbon and Göttingen, Georgian archaeologist David Lordkipanidze has, since 2004, been Director of the Georgian National Museum. He came to International fame with hominin fossil finds in the southern Caucasus. Lordkipanidze is in constant contact with scientists and museum experts elsewhere and has promoted innumerable international cooperation schemes, for example with Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz.
Goethe medal awards ceremony on 28 August 2016 in Weimar Stadtschloss
