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ICEFA 2011 Prize Awards - Latvia, Riga
29. 11. 2011
On 25 November 2011, the Embassy in Riga organized an awards ceremony in Riga’s House of Architects at which Deputy Ambassador Pavel Šusták handed 42 certificates and 11 medals over to Latvian winners of the 39th ICEFA LIDICE 2011. Taking place in the presence of the representatives of partner institutions, the ceremony opened with the documentary ‘ICEFA Lidice’ by the Lidice Memorial and concluded with the comedy “I enjoy the world with you” by M. Poledňáková.
This year’s edition had as many as 445 Latvian entries of all art categories. It should be reminded that 155 entries were pre-selected by the Latvian panel of judges in a local sub-competition that had had more than 1,300 entries; the others were sent by individual schools directly to the organizers of the competition. Before being sent to the main competition, the pre-selected works were displayed in the foyer of the Riga City Hall together with the exhibition “Czech UNESCO Heritage” (both exhibitions were honoured by the presence of Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel Schwarzenberg during his official visit to Riga). The makers of these works of art received honourable mentions for their participation; the Embassy in Riga has awarded Sympathy Prize for the fourth time, this time to ten children. Out of this number of the Latvian entries 53 were awarded prizes by the Czech panel of judges, which placed Latvia on the second rung of the imaginary success ladder out of the total number of 62 participating countries (except the Czech Republic and Slovakia). The prizes were awarded to 24 children from 14 regional schools and 29 children from 9 schools in Riga.
Just as last year, we selected this year’s prize awards venue according to one of the themes of the edition – architecture, UNESCO heritage. Therefore, the ceremony took place in Riga’s House of Architects, where there is on display an exhibition ‘Roofs of Liberec’ by the photographers D. Dostál and L. Kroupová-Dostálová from Liberec. The ceremony opened with the documentary on the 38th ICEFA Lidice, which we were pleased to receive shortly before the event began. It was followed by speeches by the representatives of the Embassy in Riga and our Latvian partners (State Centre for Education at the Ministry of Education and the municipality of Riga), without whose help and care we would not be able to promote this exhibition to such extent. The last speech was by the local coordinator and art director of the children’s centre Daugmale, who spoke about her nice experiences from this year’s, already the fourth, trip to Lidice. Then Deputy Ambassador P. Šusták presented the children with the prizes and some keepsakes prepared by the Embassy in Riga. After a treat consisting of fruit and the Czech cookies Disco, the programme concluded with the showing of the successful Czech family comedy I Enjoy the World with You by M. Poledňáková.
In total, we presented Latvian children with 462 certificates and 80 medals in last ten years, including this edition. Now we can see that thanks to the systematic promotional activity (e.g. last year’s touring exhibition Responses to the Lidice Tragedy in Riga and other five regional cities) and the great support from our Latvian partners, the exhibition, which has been already known perhaps in every Latvian school, is winning more and more attention of the public and various Latvian institutions. Next year will see some joint events supported with the exhibition and films by J. Trnka. We would like to present next year’s prizes ‘within the scene’ of the exhibition of the winning entries of the 40th International Children’s Exhibition of Fine Arts Lidice 2012 from all over the world, as it was in 2002, when the 30th edition was exhibited in the Riga hobby centre Skolénu pils.
Michal Korecký
