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!
HEART Mandala
Sonia Li
open category
HEART Mandala is a two hour video art sponsored by the Taiwan Ministry of Culture. It represents the exuberance and vitality of my current state, a compassionate interior full of emotions and lively energy. It is an extension of my new found self love, strength and respect. HEART Mandala honors the great intelligence of nature - the ocean, animals, trees and the human body, forming a mandala, a circle of vitality to awaken exuberant universal healing energy. Influenced by Tibetan murals, these talking walls are meant to help us better understand our minds and hearts, often including images of nature, deities and mandalas. The meaning of mandala translates as circle, symbolically represent wholeness and a cosmic diagram for the organizational structure of life itself. It reminds us of the worlds that extend both beyond and within our bodies and minds. For a millennium, Tibetans have painted murals to transmit mindfulness, compassion, wisdom, and other ideals. The process of making these murals are the most important to the mural artists as inner journeys towards mindfulness. On my inner journey, the practice of dance in itself is a similar experience to the making and observing of Tibetan murals. An intimate dialog between the mind and body, dance is movement minus unnecessary thoughts in a state of flow. In these moments, the dancer becomes pure vibrant energy to exude compassion and shed the spirit of its ego, to be in the most available presence. The cultivated energy is retained within the vessel of the human body to transform the mind and spirit into pure vibrational levels. HEART Mandala comes from these two practices to channel my internal 'talking walls'. I work with nature sounds and Solfeggio frequency, or healing sounds, to activate aural, neural and physical senses that transmit my internal vibrations of compassion. Rooted in the tradition of dance improvisation and theater, the dancers embodied their soul animals and improvised to explore visceral emotions of love, strength and struggle with personal stories, creating emotionally driven images inspired by Pina Bausch’s dance theater. Technology allows me to activate ancient spiritual teachings for the contemporary world, to spiritually service the public with my process of internal transformations. HEART Mandala is the visual component to an interactive installation where dancers move as animals, physically touching to activate an audiovisual field of universal healing. Full two hour video here: https://vimeo.com/368924204/4cd50fd3ca How can art catalyze change?: My work blends personal intuition, scientific research and spiritual practices to create multi-sensory experiences that are intuitive, to convey personal experiences of compassion and inject peaceful energy into the visitors. Hinging on stages of personal transformations, I use technology to bring alive internal dialogs words cannot express, softly melt together subconscious dimensions of reality to bathe visitors in positive vibrations. By transforming the self, we can begin to practice universal compassion.
HEART Mandala is a two hour video art sponsored by the Taiwan Ministry of Culture. It represents the exuberance and vitality of my current state, a compassionate interior full of emotions and lively energy. It is an extension of my new found self love, strength and respect. HEART Mandala honors the great intelligence of nature - the ocean, animals, trees and the human body, forming a mandala, a circle of vitality to awaken exuberant universal healing energy. Influenced by Tibetan murals, these talking walls are meant to help us better understand our minds and hearts, often including images of nature, deities and mandalas. The meaning of mandala translates as circle, symbolically represent wholeness and a cosmic diagram for the organizational structure of life itself. It reminds us of the worlds that extend both beyond and within our bodies and minds. For a millennium, Tibetans have painted murals to transmit mindfulness, compassion, wisdom, and other ideals. The process of making these murals are the most important to the mural artists as inner journeys towards mindfulness. On my inner journey, the practice of dance in itself is a similar experience to the making and observing of Tibetan murals. An intimate dialog between the mind and body, dance is movement minus unnecessary thoughts in a state of flow. In these moments, the dancer becomes pure vibrant energy to exude compassion and shed the spirit of its ego, to be in the most available presence. The cultivated energy is retained within the vessel of the human body to transform the mind and spirit into pure vibrational levels. HEART Mandala comes from these two practices to channel my internal 'talking walls'. I work with nature sounds and Solfeggio frequency, or healing sounds, to activate aural, neural and physical senses that transmit my internal vibrations of compassion. Rooted in the tradition of dance improvisation and theater, the dancers embodied their soul animals and improvised to explore visceral emotions of love, strength and struggle with personal stories, creating emotionally driven images inspired by Pina Bausch’s dance theater. Technology allows me to activate ancient spiritual teachings for the contemporary world, to spiritually service the public with my process of internal transformations. HEART Mandala is the visual component to an interactive installation where dancers move as animals, physically touching to activate an audiovisual field of universal healing. Full two hour video here: https://vimeo.com/368924204/4cd50fd3ca How can art catalyze change?: My work blends personal intuition, scientific research and spiritual practices to create multi-sensory experiences that are intuitive, to convey personal experiences of compassion and inject peaceful energy into the visitors. Hinging on stages of personal transformations, I use technology to bring alive internal dialogs words cannot express, softly melt together subconscious dimensions of reality to bathe visitors in positive vibrations. By transforming the self, we can begin to practice universal compassion.