The award jury, which defined Fernando Aguiar as one of the "most outstanding" personalities in experimental poetry, highlighted his poetic 'performances', for their "methodical and semantic construction through movement", appealing to "objects, sound, lighting, letters and words, where all visual and linguistic signs are used aesthetically to create a new language".

"His performances are simultaneously visual poetry-since they are based on an ordering in the space of letters and words-and 'performance', through the play of the body and its importance in the gradual revelation of the meaning" of each work.

Born in Lisbon, in 1956, he has published more than three dozen books and held around 40 solo exhibitions in several countries, including in Portugal, at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation's Modern Art Centre (Lisbon) and at Casa de Serralves (Porto).

He has also exhibited in Japan, at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space, in the United States, at the Mexic-Arte Museum (in Austin, Texas), in France, at the Musée D'Art Contemporain (Marseille), and in Spain, at the Círculo de Bellas Artes ( Madrid), among other institutions.

He is the author of “Soneto Ecológico”, a work of 'land-poetry' consisting of 70 trees planted in 14 rows of five trees, in an approximate area of ​​110x36 meters, installed in Matosinhos, in 2005.

Fernando Aguiar has an archive consisting of around 2,500 originals of visual poetry, and around 50,000 documents related to experimental and visual poetry, and areas such as conceptual art, 'performance' and postal art.

The Bernard Heidsieck Honor Award - Centre Pompidou 2021, which distinguishes a poet for his body of work, was awarded this year to Serbian author Katalin Ladik (1942), considered by the jury "the greatest and a historical figure in experimental poetry".

The Bernard Heidsieck Literary Prize – Centre Pompidou 2021, which distinguishes an author for his literary creation, in addition to book publishing, was awarded to Croatian artist Nora Turato (1991).

The Bernard Heidsieck – Centre Pompidou Prize has been awarded to international authors such as Lambert Pignotti, John Giorno, Alain-Arias Misson, Richard Kostelanetz or Clemente Padin.

Bernard Heidsieck (1928-2014) was an experimental and sound poet, and was in Portugal in 1987 to participate in the Symposium of the 1st International Festival of Live Poetry, at the Santos Rocha Municipal Museum, in Figueira da Foz.