The Open Call for the Social Art Award 2019 under the topic “We are the People – Peaceful Revolutions” was closed on December 15, 2019. We are very impressed by 558 submissions that were contributed by artists coming from 65 countries across all continents. 

The winners of The Social Art Award 2019 are Narcissa Gold (USA), Melinda Mouzannar (Lebanon) and Bogna Grazyna Jaroslawski (Poland/Germany). The Honorary Mention goes to Kingson Kin Sing Chan (Hong Kong/UK). 

Below you find the artworks, that passed the initial jury round. The public voting took place till 30 December and is a tool to give more public visibility to the topic and the artworks. It does not replace the final jury judgment. There were two wildcards for the most voted artworks that entered the final shortlist

The focus diversity of applications shows that artists are active in the multi-faceted fields of socially engaged art reflecting on wars, genocides, femicides, traumata, violence against refugees, children, women, men, disabled people, LGBTIQs, animals. They share feelings for the planet and its living species, but also showing hopelessness due to complex crises be it climate change (e.g. in regard to water pollution), capitalism, corruption, a violation against human rights, nature, protected national parks. Many of the artists are constantly trying to give a voice to the poorest or empower unheard social groups.

It’s not only about peaceful revolutions, but it’s also about feeling a deep connection and showing love and respect for each other.
Thank you all for sharing your great and inspirational work and look at all the great contributions!

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38
Kintsugi- The Presence of your Absence.
by Gaby Oshiro
Category: open category
593
Contest is finished!
https://social-art-award.org/award2019/?contest=photo-detail&photo_id=1080
38
593
Title:
Kintsugi- The Presence of your Absence.

Author:
Gaby Oshiro

Category:
open category

Description:
Forty years after seeing her father taken away forever, the artist decided that, instead of rebuilding her life forgetting, it was time to remember. After years of silence and carrying the disappearance of our loved ones almost as an stigma I wanted to shout to the world that we’re not hiding anymore, that we are proud of our desaparecidos, that we are letting go of the pain and we are wearing the scars and imperfections as “battle scars” and it’s something that made us stronger. Today the huge absence left by the desaparecidos is still palpable, it’s felt as much as their presence was once felt or perhaps even more, there’s also the realization that their legacy of openness to other races, their hybrid mentality, integration to their South American country and their commitment to make a better place is alive and kicking with the new generations. After forty-two years in Argentina the relatives of the desaparecidos are still looking for justice to be made and answers about the fate of the desaparecidos. After all this time these faces on canvas haven’t been forgotten. ​ Gaby Oshiro works in this portrait reproduction exercise, giving the practice the name of Kintsugi, which in the Japanese tradition is the art of recognizing beauty in something that has been broken. This metaphor conceived by the artist is recognizable in her works, which express the concept of self-healing from the creation, combining fragments and sealing them with the color of memory. As usual in collaboration with the Italian architect Germano Dalla Pola who deals with the planning of the exhibition. The first part of the exhibition was exhibited in September-October 2016, in the Cultural Space of the Library of the National Congress of Buenos Aires, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Association in Argentina. The second part took place in the Galleria dell'Artistico in December 2018 - January 2019, a cultural space belonging to the fine arts school in Treviso, the place where Gaby Oshiro completed his studies and the Italian city that hosted his family during the reconstruction of a new life. The exhibition proposes a kind of reappropriation of the physical space: each portrait and chair make that empty space left by the 17 Nikkei tangible. The chair ceases to be an object of everyday use and becomes the symbol, in the presence of absence. How can art catalyze change?: History revisionists are trying to erase the desaparecidos from Argentina’s history. Like the Holocaust deniers, many Argentinean politicians deny the number of desaparecidos. Nowadays the government in Argentina has improved since those dark days from 1970's and 1980's, but it is still adopting the same common practices used during the repression of state terrorism like disappearance, torture and murder.
Description:
Forty years after seeing her father taken away forever, the artist decided that, instead of rebuilding her life forgetting, it was time to remember. After years of silence and carrying the disappearance of our loved ones almost as an stigma I wanted to shout to the world that we’re not hiding anymore, that we are proud of our desaparecidos, that we are letting go of the pain and we are wearing the scars and imperfections as “battle scars” and it’s something that made us stronger. Today the huge absence left by the desaparecidos is still palpable, it’s felt as much as their presence was once felt or perhaps even more, there’s also the realization that their legacy of openness to other races, their hybrid mentality, integration to their South American country and their commitment to make a better place is alive and kicking with the new generations. After forty-two years in Argentina the relatives of the desaparecidos are still looking for justice to be made and answers about the fate of the desaparecidos. After all this time these faces on canvas haven’t been forgotten. ​ Gaby Oshiro works in this portrait reproduction exercise, giving the practice the name of Kintsugi, which in the Japanese tradition is the art of recognizing beauty in something that has been broken. This metaphor conceived by the artist is recognizable in her works, which express the concept of self-healing from the creation, combining fragments and sealing them with the color of memory. As usual in collaboration with the Italian architect Germano Dalla Pola who deals with the planning of the exhibition. The first part of the exhibition was exhibited in September-October 2016, in the Cultural Space of the Library of the National Congress of Buenos Aires, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Association in Argentina. The second part took place in the Galleria dell'Artistico in December 2018 - January 2019, a cultural space belonging to the fine arts school in Treviso, the place where Gaby Oshiro completed his studies and the Italian city that hosted his family during the reconstruction of a new life. The exhibition proposes a kind of reappropriation of the physical space: each portrait and chair make that empty space left by the 17 Nikkei tangible. The chair ceases to be an object of everyday use and becomes the symbol, in the presence of absence. How can art catalyze change?: History revisionists are trying to erase the desaparecidos from Argentina’s history. Like the Holocaust deniers, many Argentinean politicians deny the number of desaparecidos. Nowadays the government in Argentina has improved since those dark days from 1970's and 1980's, but it is still adopting the same common practices used during the repression of state terrorism like disappearance, torture and murder.