About the Siberian Children’s Drawing Competition.
The number of works submitted for the 2022 competition is indeed a considerable total of 439 paintings and drawings for all age groups. Undoubtedly, students’ teachers, including parents, who have promoted the involvement of children and young people, go deep into the difficult topics of Latvia’s history. In the continuous and inexhaustible flow of information, it is important that someone is able to speak more deeply. Looking at the works of children and young people, it is impossible not to think about the reality that we are all “breathing in the back of our eyes” today, in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its consequences. It remains almost physically unfortunate, noticing a frighteningly similar episode, a situation embedded in the drawing that seems to have just been seen in one of the current news channels. Even as adults, it is impossible for us to step out to distance ourselves and try to grasp what is happening so fast. What happens to children, in the minds of very young people, when they begin to notice a certain “repetition of history” in a geographical area close to them, we can only guess. The members of the jury are also just people. People who are most addressed in children’s work by direct emotionality, a confident “handwriting” and a composition whose persuasiveness lies in the true desire to tell the “Siberian story” more clearly. When evaluating the works not for the first year, it must be repeatedly admitted that the works submitted by the youngest and middle group children are the most disarming. There, the participant has not yet been overwhelmed by the paralyzing fear of drawing a “wrong” hand, foot or nose, but the main thing is to feel the “skin” of the event, which opens a living expression. A child’s talent (and well, if delicately guided by a skilled teacher) then allows for stroke dynamics, saturated active or restrained coloring – depending on intent. Imaginations created by the imagination of events that
have come to this day through the stories of eyewitnesses. The older group of children, who are naturally expected to have both a more thorough understanding of history and a more mature focus on the technical performance of their work, can no longer “get through” with the naive directness of childhood. Painting and
graphics also demonstrate not only the management of means of expression but also thinking. Therefore, the jury is pleased to find a rather rare, but noteworthy, original view of the topic each time.
The competition is a competition, it highlights the brightest examples, but it should be borne in mind that behind each of the other works there is a certain young person who has for some time hindered his or her thoughts on a topic important to the Latvian nation. Probably thinking about where we come from and where we go.
Ieva Jurjāne, artist
2022 drawing competition for students
“Children of Siberia 1941/1949”
RESULTS
Group 1 (6 – 10 years)
1st place Sofia Shabanova
2nd place Timur Lapkovsky
3rd place Emil Kroich
Special awards
Līvija Apsīte (special award presented by Regīna Deičmane)
Matīss Leinis (special award presented by Regīna Deičmane)
Nils and Ieva Mets (special award presented by Dzintra Geka)
Mark Zvejnieks (special award presented by Giors Geks)
Group 2 (11 – 14 years)
1st place Raivis Svētiņš
2nd place Megija LuīzeTūtiņa
3rd place Līva Amberga
Special awards
Liele Dergachova (special award presented by Mara Alena)
Dairis Permanickis (special award presented by Linda Lūse)
Evelīna Neilande (special award presented by Ieva Jurjāne)
Group 3 (15 – 19 years)
1st place Dagmara Dumbra-Dumbrovskis
2nd place Patricia Žaimunde
3rd place Angelika Percova
Special awards
Daniela Ryabova (special award presented by Roberts Muzis)
Rihards Knostenbergs (special award presented by Ieva Jurjāne)
