Taking place amidst a global pandemic that forced the vast majority of schoolchildren throughout the Danube River Basin to learn and create from home, Danube Art Master nonetheless received a tremendous number of submissions in 2020. The Danube region's flagship international arts competition for kids and young people received some 54 artworks in three different categories in 2020: Art, Video, and Maps. In the spirit of this strange year, there's an additional prize too, for the small number of submissions that were delayed beyond the deadline by pandemic-related extenuating circumstances. A breakdown of the number of artworks received per category can be found below:
- Art: Junior (6-11), 10 artworks; Teens (12-18), 10 artworks
- Video: Junior (6-11), 6 videos; Teens (12-18), 10 videos
- Map: Junior (6-11), 7 maps; Teens (12-18), 8 maps
- Special COVID contestants: 3 artworks
- Total artworks submitted: 54
Winners by category
Art:
In Art category for group Juniors, the winning art Laubfisch (“Fish made of leaves”) was made by Class 3b of Primary school at the Pestalozzistraße in Ingolstadt, Germany.
Figure 1: Laubfisch (“Fish made of leaves”); Class 3b of Primary school at the Pestalozzistraße in Ingolstadt, Germany
In Art category for group Teens, the winning art U zagrlјaju Dunava (“In the embrace of the Danube”) was made by VII/VIII grade students of Elementary Scholl ''Stefan Nemanja'' in Niš, Serbia; by group of 4 students Dimitrije Ristić (VIII/4), Iva Mitrović (VII/2), Ivana Stojković (VII/2), Iva Milanov (VII/4).
Figure 2: U zagrlјaju Dunava (“In the embrace of the Danube”), VII/VIII grade students of Elementary Scholl ''Stefan Nemanja'' in Niš, Serbia
Video:
In Video category for group Juniors, the winning video Dunavski ekosistemi (“Danube ecosystems”) was made by Jacopo Marazzi and Ilija Marazzi from Belgrade, Serbia.
Figure 3: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-JbKi5fhdzKwxyUjLtB5W016d9XnRoQK?usp=sharing
In Video category for group Teens, the winning video The Danube River was made by Simona Petrova, Eva Marinova from IX.class of Vocational school „Prof. Dr. Assen Zlatarov“ from Vidin, Bulgaria.
Figure 4: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-JbKi5fhdzKwxyUjLtB5W016d9XnRoQK?usp=sharing
Map:
In Map category for group Juniors, the winning map Impreuna pentru dunare (“Toghether for Danube”) was made by Maria-Delia Dima from Elementary school School Paul Bujor, Berești Romania.
Figure 5: Impreuna pentru dunare (“Toghether for Danube”), Maria-Delia Dima from Elementary school School Paul Bujor, Berești Romania.
In Maps category for group Teens, the winning map Prut River - Treasure of Moldova was made by Iasmina Costileanu from Highschool „Mihai Eminescu”, Cahul, Moldova.
Figure 6: Prut River - Treasure of Moldova, Iasmina Costileanu from Highschool „Mihai Eminescu”, Cahul, Moldova
Special COVID contestants
This category was devoted to the countries, where the pandemic situation was so bad that they could not participate in DAM 2020 as it was in previous years. Special COVID-19 winner was video Danes za lepši jutri (“Today for a better tomorrow”) made by VIII. grade students of Elementary school Tržišče, Slovenia; by Žana Bartolj & Ajda Jamšek.
Figure 7: Danes za lepši jutri (“Today for a better tomorrow”), VIII. grade students of Elementary school Tržišče, Slovenia; by Žana Bartolj & Ajda Jamšek.
"While the competition was still about bringing the most important environmental issues into our school classrooms, this year's Danube Art Master ended up being a bit different," says ICPDR President for 2020, Mr. Dorin Andros. "The children of the Danube River Basin stepped up to the challenge of working remotely and socially distanced magnificently, and retained the spirit needed to treasure the precious shared resource of the Danube River.”
The Danube Art Master winners are selected by 11 countries, which share the Danube River Basin, including Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine. The competition is open to all children and schools across the 13 countries that make up the Danube River Basin. Around 280 children from 57 schools participated, submitting 257 artworks including team submissions.
The Danube Art Master competition is an opportunity for the children of the Danube River Basin to consider and discover the health of their local rivers, and a moment to decide how they wish to help preserve these waters for the future. All eligible young artists are encouraged to use material captured, inspired, or borrowed directly from the environment itself in the creation of their artworks, and to look at their local surroundings as a key source of inspiration in the process.
The competition was jointly organized by the ICPDR and the Global Water Partnership Central and Eastern Europe (GWP CEE), an ICPDR observer organisation and one of the largest networks focusing on water in the world.
International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR)
The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) is an international organization comprised of 14 cooperating states and the European Union. Since its establishment in 1998, the ICPDR has grown into one of the largest and most active international bodies for river basin management in Europe. The ICPDR deals not only with the Danube river itself, but with the entire
Danube River Basin, including its tributaries and the ground water resources. The ultimate goal of the ICPDR is to implement the Danube River Protection Convention (DRPC) and generally ensure that the river is in adequate condition. In this role, it promotes sustainable and equitable water management, including conservation, improvement and rational use of waters for the benefit of the Danube River Basin countries and their people. The ICPDR pursues its mission by making recommendations to improve water quality, developing mechanisms for flood and accident control, establishing standards for emissions and by assuring that these are reflected in the Contracting Parties’ national legislations and applied in their policies.
Photo & Copyright - Winner arts from participating countries.