During the struggle against the Covid-19 pandemic, we are facing not only a threat to our lives. Many of us are now living in isolation, which has broken our professional and life plans. Conferences, summer schools and creative laboratories are either postponed or canceled and despite wide access to online resources, psychological pressure makes it much more difficult to create something new and express one’s ideas and feelings. Moreover, we are now smothered by the uncontrolled information flow, where truth and deceit coexist. There are fights in the media between official authorities and private voices, quite a few anonymous statements among the latter. This raises questions concerning the possibility of jeopardizing the source, as well as the reliability of it. In this situation, it is important to think about the limits of freedom of expression. According to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”. Within the contest, we propose considering what happens to freedom of expression in pandemic circumstances in your social, academic and creative life. We propose finding expressive visual images, making it possible to reveal what is so problematic to articulate in the situation when words are not enough.
All students from OSUN are invited to take part in the contest, regardless of the cycle, program, year or form of their studies.
From April 14 to May 14 (inclusive), the participants of the contest can submit their works in the nominations as follows:
- Comics
- Poster series
- Animated video
- Photo Essay
- Video / Video Clips
In each nomination, 5 winners and grand-prix are to be selected. One participant can submit only one nomination. The winning works and grand-prizes will be included in the online exhibition to be published on the OSUN and EHU web-sites. All authors of the works selected for the online exhibition will be awarded certificates, and the authors of the grand-prizes will be also awarded special presents from EHU. EHU students might include their works selected for the online exhibition in their portfolios to apply for grants and scholarships at EHU.
To submit a nomination for the contest, you need to post your work on social networks Instagram, Facebook or VK with hashtags #PandemicFreedom and #OSUNVisualContest, indicating in your post the title of your work in the original language and in English. In addition, please send an email with your contest application to Kseniya Shtalenkova via kseniya.shtalenkova@ehu.lt, indicating the following information:
- Your name and surname
- Your university, cycle/degree program, academic program/major, year, and country/state of residence
- The title of your work in the original language and in English
- The link to the post with your work on social networks
In the subject of your email, please indicate “Visual Contest 2020”. Please note that without the application works cannot be accepted for the contest.
To equalize the participants in the selection conditions, but in no way limiting the range of artistic means, we suggest the following technical requirements for the works submitted for the contest:
- For the nomination “Comics” — 4 А4 strips, .jpeg format, sRGB color mode, resolution of 72 ppi.
- For the nomination “Poster Series” — 4 60х90 cm posters, .jpeg format, sRGB color mode, resolution of 72 ppi.
- For the nominations “Animated Video” and “Video / Video-clips” — 20–30 sec video, .mp4 format, H.264 codec, ААС audio, 128–3500 kbps, 30 fps, 1080 px maximum width.
- For the nomination “Photo Essay” — 6–10 photographs, .jpeg format, sRGB color mode, resolution of no less than 2 MP.
Just in case, please save your working files (those for printing with a resolution of at least 150 dpi, CMYK color mode), for we believe in the perspective that our online exhibition might go offline after the pandemic is over!
The results of the contest will be announced on the OSUN and EHU websites and on social networks no later than on May 25. The jury of experts will be represented by Associate Dean of Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, New York) Camilia Jones, the faculty members of the EHU undergraduate program “Visual Design” and graduate program “Visual Plastic Art” Prof. Žydrė Ridulytė, Dr. Konstantin Gaitanži, Assoc. Prof. Irina Kodiukova, Julia Titowa, Assoc. Prof. Uladzimir Dowgialo, Maksim Zhuk and Marius Dirgėla, as well as the faculty of Bard International Network “Freedom of Expression” course Kseniya Shtalenkova (EHU), Maria Laktionkina (EHU), Prof. Michael Weinman (Bard College Berlin), Dragan Kuljanin (Al Quds Bard College for Arts & Sciences), Assoc. Prof. Denis Skopin (Smolny College), Hannepes Taychayev and Azim Zheenbaev (American University of Central Asia).
We also invite OSUN faculty and staff members to join the online challenge, dedicated to freedom of expression and Covid-19 pandemic. Please post your videos on social networks Instagram, Facebook and VK using hashtag #PandemicFreedom from April 14 to May 14 and invite your friends to share their experience of the limitations of freedom of expression that they are facing during the isolation period.
In case you have questions concerning the contest or challenge, please contact Kseniya Shtalenkova via kseniya.shtalenkova@ehu.lt.
Looking forward to seeing your works and videos! Take care and keep in touch!