United Nations Art Contest Announces 12 Young Winners as 6,623 Entries

From 92 Countries Project Singular Message — Peace

 

NEW YORK, 27 June (Office for Disarmament Affairs) — A total of 12 young artists have been announced as winners in the United Nations Art for Peace contest, which ran from 1 February to 30 April and attracted 6,623 entries from 92 countries.

As the selection process unfolded over the month of May, a panel of 140 jurors (http://www.unartforpeace.org/docs/ART_FOR_PEACE_JUROR_BIOGRAPHIES.pdf) from 40 countries, primarily comprising art and education specialists, was asked to evaluate each work of art based on its creativity, composition, theme and technique.  In two rounds of online judging, the panellists selected four winners from each age group (ages 5-8, ages 9-12 and ages 13-17).

The top four winners in the 13-17 age group will receive cash prizes that were doubled from the original amounts, thanks to a generous contribution of matching funds from South-South News.  In that category, first-prize winner Haruka Shoji from the United States will receive $1,000 for “Someday”.  The $600 second prize goes to Japanese artist Ai Yamanaka for “Nature”, and third prize, $400, was awarded to Sutatip Maijanfrom Thailand for a submission entitled “Defense Cooperation”.  Fourth prize, $200, will go to Itzel Azalia Joya Figueroa from El Salvador for a rendition of “Feeding Peace”.

From the 9-12-year-old category, the top prizes went to Malaysian artist Mok Yan Ling, Michelle Minzhi Li of the United States, Karina Pershina from Kazakhstan’s and Germany’s Annika Tiedemann.  The top four winners from the 5-8-year-old group are Galuh Edelweiss from Indonesia, Zhihan Lu of China, the Russian Federation’s Eugene Ugolnikov and Areen Hamad of Pakistan.  Each of these artists will receive their prizes in the form of art supplies kindly donated by Harmony for Peace Foundation, a founding partner of the contest.  Every participating artist may download a Certificate of Participation from the contest website.

“Scarcely a day passes without a new horror confronting us — nuclear-weapon threats, missile tests, arms races, civil wars, terrorism,” said Angela Kane, United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, speaking about the contest.  “How reassuring it is then to see a new generation coming into this world with a different vision of the future of our planet — a vision expressed in over 6,000 works of art submitted by children from 92 countries, all focused on ‘Imagining a World free of Nuclear Weapons’,” she added.  “I hope this contest will serve as a first step to achieving such a world.”

The contest sought and received widespread support from United Nations Headquarters staff, including the translation of “Art for Peace 2012” flyer into 29 different languages, which made the contest accessible to children across the globe, as demonstrated by the many thousands of entries.

In addition to the large number of entries, the specially designed website received more than 1 million page views from over 187 countries.

All winning artwork will be reproduced in a United Nations calendar for the 12 outstanding artists to keep as a lasting memory of their efforts.  The calendar will be available for purchase through United Nations Publishing, and the winning artwork can be seen at http://www.unartforpeace.org.

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For information media • not an official record