Lidice gallery is filling up with children art works

1. 3. 2016

The 44th y year if ICEFA - themed School? Education! - is already in full swing. Children’s art works from all over the world are being delivered to Lidice, where they will compete for awards, the Rose of Lidice medals as well as honorable mentions.

So far, everything indicates this year will be a strong one, as over 7,000 works from 62 different countries have been registered already, and many more packages are yet to be opened. As you can see from the photos, many schools don’t send their works until the deadline (February 29th). The registration of hundreds of works, which are delivered to Lidice during the first weeks of March, is extremely complicated. Please be patient, your works will be registered as soon as possible.

The basement of the Lidice Gallery is filling up with not only paintings, but also 3D works, which were collected and brought from schools in Moravia and Southern Czech Republic. These works made from ceramics, glass, textile, paper, plastic, wood, and many other materials are registered by staff at the Lidice Memorial and put onto the shelves for the jury to see. The panel of judges will work in 2 rounds – the first one, the so called “elimination round”, will take place between the 24th and 26th of March. In the second round (arranged between the 31stof March and 2nd of April) the judges will award medals and honorable mentions to the best works. This year’s panel of judges will be joined by both Czech and foreign judges from Belgium, Hong Kong, Latvia, and the USA. They will also be accompanied by a special guest, the famous photographer Robert Vano.

The 44th edition’s results revealed!

6. 5. 2016

The results of the 44th edition of ICEFA Lidice 2016 are being made available to the public, 5 days before scheduled, as well as the Report of the session of the expert panel of judges. We congratulate the winners, for whom this signifies a great success. The Czech medalists and representatives of foreign school awarded by Prize of the jury 2016 will receive their medals in person in Lidice on Tuesday 31, 2016 at 11am, while the other foreign winners will collect their awards later through the Czech embassies in their respective countries.

We would like to ask all of the winners and their teachers to kindly check the names of the children and schools to ensure we entered them correctly, and in case of a mistake please let us know any changes by May 12, 2016 at kasalicka@lidice-memorial.cz. This is the only way to be certain the names printed on the child’s diploma are correct.

We again congratulate the winners and invite all the participants (including those whose works were not awarded this year) to come to the opening ceremony.

Ivona Kasalická, the exhibition curator

44. ICEFA Lidice 2016 exhibition opened, children's medals handed over

5. 6. 2016

On Tuesday, 31 May 2016, the Lidice Gallery saw medals being presented to the 57 best child artists from Czech Republic, 1 from Slovak Republic, 1 from Bulgaria and 2 children and their teacher from India.  The Indian school Young Envoys International from Hyderabad was awarded along with the Primary School Sedmikráska Rožnov pod Radhoštěm with the highest award of the exhibition - the Prize of the Panel of Judges.

The prizes were presented by the Minister of Education, Youth and Sports Kateřina Valachová, the Minister for Human Rights, Equal Opportunities and Legislation Jiří Dienstbier, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Chancery of the Ministry Ivana Červenková, the Deputy Minister of Culture for Cultural Heritage Vlastislav Ouroda, the Secretary-General of the Czech Commission for UNESCO Karel Komárek, the Program Coordinator at the Czech Centres Ljuba Svobodová and the chairman of the Panel of Judges of the Exhibition Josef Zedník. Prizes for winners, whose works had been put to the vote on the web server Alik.cz and a finantial reward of 10,000 for Primary School Sedmikráska from Rožnov pod Radhoštěm were presented by Zuzana Tornikidis, the director of a co-operating organization, the Agrofert Foundation. Also present were ambassadors and representatives of 21 embassies in the Czech Republic.

The ceremony was opened by the children's choir of International Chinese School in Prague and fanfares of Karel Vencour.

The exhibition can be seen on the 2nd floor of the Lidice Gallery from 1st June till the 30st November 2016, daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., in November to 4 p.m.

Transportation: Lidice is situated between Prague and Kladno.

By car - direction to Slany, turn to direction Kladno, Lidice.

By bus - go by underground, line A, to the station Nádraží Veleslavín, then change to commuter bus 56, line Prague – Kladno, departing from the stop no. 3 (station Lidice, near Muzeum of Lidice Memorial, cca 10 minutes of walk to the Lidice gallery, or bus 22 (station Lidice, Obecní úřad, station in front of the Lidice gallery, in the centre of the village Lidice).

More about the opening ceremony can be found here, photos from the opening and the awarding ceremony can be seen here.

Presence of the ICEFA curator at the 8th Biennial International Children’s and Young Adults’ Painting Competition Tehran – 2016

15. 11. 2016

International Children's Exhibition of Fine Arts Lidice can boast with more than 20,000 children's entries from upwards of 70 countries that include works by children from Iran. Regularly there is about 500 of them, once the package from Iran contained nearly 1,000 entries. Iranian children have always been successful in the competition and their prizes have been sent via the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Czech Embassy in Teheran that has been interested in organizing the prize-giving ceremony. However, they have not manage to do so till this year because Kanoon, the organization that has been sending entries to Lidice, informed the Embassy that the winning children come not only from Teheran but all over Iran, which makes the prize-giving ceremony in Teheran impossible.

This time, however, some of the Iranian children did have their prize-giving ceremony organized.

Kanoon, which has been providing art education for children in many places of Iran for decades while publishing children's books and supporting artists and teachers, set up an art competition called Biennial International Children’s Art Competition Tehran.

Some years ago, the management of Kanoon decided to invite also foreigners to join the jury and this year's 8th edition, which was dedicated to the theme "Water" and admitted free themed entries as well, seeing 5,318 entries from 28 countries including Czechia and Slovakia, had among the members of the jury Ivona Kasalická, Curator of the International Children's Exhibition of Fine Arts, organized by a semi-budgetary organization of the Czech Ministry of Culture, the Lidice Memorial.

The second round of the contest took place on 7 November 2016 in the main Kanoon building in the centre of Teheran. Besides the ICEFA curator four Iranian members comprised the jury: the artists and teachers Zahra Absouran, Mamak Yahyapour, Nader Fatemi and the ex-director of Kanoon's Centre for Culture and Fine Arts, Mr. Mahdi Mojtahed. The assessed entries received 99 gold medals, 132 silver ones, 77 bronze ones and 235 honourable mentions Moreover, the jury decided that all participants would be sent a Certificate of Participation. Included in the programme was a presentation by Ivona Kasalická, who introduced 40 KANOON's teachers and artists in the audience to the history of Lidice, to the Lidice Memorial and the history of ICEFA Lidice as well as the art education in Czechia. As part of the presentation, a film about ICEFA Lidice was shown.

On the suggestion of the curator for personal presentation of prizes to the Iranian winners of the 44th ICEFA Lidice 2016, a 500 km-long journey was organized to the town of Kermanshah situated 120 km away from the border with Irak and in the proximity of the Kurdistan province. This town is home to 7 out of 14 child-winners of ICEFA Lidice 2016. Taking place in a very festive atmosphere in one of the Kanoon buildings on 9 November 2016, the prize-giving ceremony included some film screenings and children's dance performances. At the end, prizes were presented to all 7 children including 3 medallists. The prizes and gifts were presented to children by the curator along with top officials of Kanoon in Kermanshah and representatives of the town and the province. The same day another presentation took place for 16 Kanoon teachers, again presenting Lidice, the Lidice Memorial, ICEFA history and art education of Czech children.

Generally, the business trip was very successful and well accepted both by teachers and the representatives of Kanoon and was also appreciated in high places. It is good that the Lidice Memorial and ICEFA can spread the knowledge about Lidice, the Lidice Memorial, ICEFA Lidice and Czech art education of children, cooperating in the field of children's fine art activities also with more distant countries that have not been much discovered yet in the Czech culture. Being very interested in this cooperation, Iranian teachers and artists are looking forward to enhancing it.

Ivona Kasalická