JURY
| Caro van Eekelen - Managing Director Accor Hotels Nederland and Chairman of the Mercure Cultuurprijs juryCaro van Eekelen began her career in 1986 at Golden Tulip International where, over a six year period, she assisted in the opening of a number of hotels in locations such as the Caribbean, Ghana and France. Caro moved to Disneyland Resort Paris upon its opening in 1992, going on to occupy various management positions over the next 14 years. In 2006, Caro set up her own specialist hospitality management consultancy, CVE, in Paris. Between 2007 and 2009, she served as Chief Operating Officer for Adagio City Aparthotel in Paris. During this time, she was responsible expanding the Aparthotel chain to 30 establishments, located in major European cities. Caro van Eekelen has been Managing Director of Accor Hotels Nederland since July 2009. |
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| Carli Hermès – PhotographerCarli Hermès is a well-known name in the world of photography, famous for exploring boundaries in his work – boundaries of eroticism, detachment and seduction. Thanks to his versatility of style, he is constantly creating surprising new images. He made his name as a commercial photographer for major brands like BMW, Mercedes Benz, Nike, G-Star and Martini, and was responsible for Suitsupply’s much talked-about campaigns. Many leading Dutch and international personalities have also appeared in front of his lens, including Natalie Imbruglia, Matthijs van Nieuwkerk, Katja Römer Schuurman, Mabel Wisse Smit, Rutger Hauer, Georgina Verbaan, Dinand Woesthoff, Hans Klok and Britt Dekker. He has produced reportages for such titles as Madame Figaro, Vogue, Glamour, AvantGarde, Elegance, Elle and Men's Health, and has photographed many celebrities for Playboy. He recently appeared as a photographer and guest judge in the television contest Holland’s Next Top Model. Hermès’ work can also be seen in galleries and museums. |
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| Charlotte van Lingen - Curator Kunsthal RotterdamCharlotte van Lingen is an art historian and curator specialising in visual art and culture, in particular documentary and storytelling photography. Since 2002 she has worked at Kunsthal Rotterdam, where she has organised more than a hundred exhibitions, large and small, and worked on numerous books and catalogues. Before that she was one of the founders of Casco (now Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory) in Utrecht, co-ordinator of the Department of Graphic Design at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, had her own gallery for design and applied art in Amersfoort and was head of the art lending service at Museum De Beyerd (now MOTI) in Breda. |
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| Iebele van der Meulen – Editor-in-Chief, LINDA.specials and Director of Photography, LINDA.After graduating with distinction in Fashion Styling and Forecasting in 1992, Iebele van der Meulen began his career as a freelance stylist working on a wide range of assignments for such magazines as MAN, Elegance, Marie Claire and LINDA., as well as commercial projects for the likes of De Bijenkorf, G-Star, Mercedes and Gucci. In 2004 he joined the staff of LINDA. as director of photography, and is now also editor-in-chief of its spin-off titles LINDA.mode, L'HOMO and LINDA.wonen. This not the first time that Van der Meulen has judged a competition: in 1999 he helped select the winner of the Robijn Fashion Award. |
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| Caroline O'Breen – Curator and proprietor, Seelevel GalleryA 1996 graduate of Cultural Studies and Museology, Caroline O’Breen began her professional career as curator of photography at art lending service SBK Amsterdam. She also organised exhibitions and worked as an art consultant to companies and private collectors. After leaving SBK, she became the art buyer for Holland America Lines’ cruise ships and a project officer and career coach for artists’ support organisation Kunstenaars&CO. In 2006 she founded The Gallery Club, a photographic event at which art and music meet. And three years later she opened the Seelevel Gallery, an online forum for contemporary autonomous art photography which organises temporary exhibitions at a wide variety of locations. O’Breen specialises in career guidance for up-and-coming young photographers and has taken part in many conferences and portfolio reviews for photographic festivals in the Netherlands and abroad. |
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| Wim van Sinderen – Curator, The Hague Museum of PhotographyOpened in 2002, The Hague Museum of Photography is part of the city’s famous Gemeentemuseum and works closely with the Department of Special Collections at Leiden University Library. In recent years, this partnership has brought about exhibitions devoted to the work of Emmy Andriesse (2003) and Gerard P. Fieret (2004), as well as Erwin Blumenfeld – His Dutch Years 1918-1936 (2006), Photography! A Special Collection at Leiden University (2010) and Gare du Nord – Dutch Photographers in Paris, 1900-1968 (2011). Van Sinderen also compiled the publication Fotografen in Nederland – een anthologie 1852-2002. Before joining the museum, he spent ten years as curator at Kunsthal Rotterdam and from 1982 until 1988 was art editor of the monthly magazine Vinyl. |
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| Ranti Tjan - Director Sundaymorning@ekwcTjan is director of Sundaymorning@ekwc, an internationally oriented artist-in-residence centre and centre of excellence, the aim of which is to promote the development of ceramic and visual art, design and architecture. Working in this capacity, he acts as advisor to ceramics biennales in Korea, the United Kingdom and France, among others. Tjan is a member of the board of Cultureel Persburo, the Internationale Gaudeamus Muziekweek and visual arts exhibition Noordkaap, in Dordrecht. He was previously director of museumgoudA and, prior to that, worked at Centraal Museum in Utrecht and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Amsterdam. |
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| Gerrit Uittenbogaard - Designer at fashion label G + N, founder of jeans label Gluejeans and teacher/coordinator of textile and fashion design at the Royal Academy in The HagueSince 1999 Gerrit Uittenbogaard forms the designerduo G + N with Natasja Martens. Uittenbogaard studied fashion at the Academy of Fine Arts Maastricht. After graduating, Uittenbogaard earned a master's degree at the Fashion Institute Arnhem, where he was part of the first batch of students. Since 2002, Uittenbogaard teaches textile and fashion design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. In 2008 G+N launched their jeans label Gluejeans at the opening of the Amsterdam International Fashion Week (AIFW). In that same year Uittenbogaard won the Dutch Design Award, fashion and accessories. Besides the Gluejeans collection, G + N works mainly on interdisciplinary projects such as the recent exhibitions "Vanitas" and "The transparent body”, for the National Glass Museum in Leerdam. |
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