Award Winner: Milan Kohout
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Independent filmmaker, poet, theatre and video performer, Milan Kohout believes art can build bridges of understanding between different cultures. Milan is a native of the Czech Republic where he was a member of the dissident group, Charter 77, a relatively small group of Czechoslovak artists, intellectuals, as well as workers and peasants promoting human rights through dissident activities. He was granted political asylum in the United States in 1988 and is now a citizen of the United States, living in Boston, Massachusetts.
Since 1994, Milan has been a member of the Mobius Artists Group in Boston. He has also performed at the De Cordova Museum, the Kingston Gallery and with Ruby Slippers Productions, Invisible Cities and others.
In 1998, Milan went to Taiwan to represent Mobius in the Boston Tainan Arts and Urban Design Cultural Exchange Program. He was selected to represent Mobius again in 1999 in a cultural exchange between Mobius and artists from Pula in the Istria region of Croatia. The program was funded in part by grant from ArtsLink/CEC International Partners and The Trust for Mutual Understanding.
Milan was also selected as artist-in-residence at Arizona State University, where he created several full-scale theatrical productions.
In 1999 with a grant to create art about xenophobia and racism in the Czech Republic from the Czech Cultural Ministry, Milan’s performance next to an infamous wall that separated the Romani-Czech community from the white-Czech community received widespread media coverage which enormously helped to put pressure on city officials and within days the wall was razed.
In July 2000 Milan participated in the 6th. International Theater Festival in Pula, Croatia and won the first prize for his performance on the subject of human rights of local Roma people. As an act of recognition, the Croatian Roma organization " Udruga Roma Istre" issued Milan Roma identity card and he became an honorary Roma member of Gypsy Union. On August of the same year he was a delegate for Canadian Roma on 5th Congress of World International Romani Union in Prague.
In August 2001 he participated on International art exchange program in Zadar -Croatia. His performance and installation criticizing the legacy of fascism, which is still present in some parts of a Croatian society, gained nationwide attention in Croatian media's.
“Art is like water, an omnipotent part of nature. It is everywhere, circulating in the endless support of life and it will eventually leak through all the seals and barriers and will continue to spread necessary nutrients for the complex life of all human beings.”