Sofija Jelić, student of the Nova Varoš High School Pivo Karamatijević, won the European PROGRES 2015 Calendar art competition, while the second and third prizes went to Nikola Kostić, who attends the Vladičin Han Technical School and Aleksandra Milenković, a pupil of the Leskovac Textile and Design School. At today’s ceremony in Blace, European PROGRES Programme Manager Graeme Tyndall and Blace Mayor Ivan Burgić awarded the authors of the best 12 works the prizes: a laptop, tablets and digital cameras. The Leskovac-based secondary school Grdelica, which was proclaimed the best school, won a laptop and a projector, which will help it improve the quality of its teaching activities.
“The new Programme European PROGRES, which was launched this year, has continued the tradition of organising art competitions for high schoolers initiated by the previous development programmes, PRO, MIR and EU PROGRES that were also funded by the European Union and the Swiss Government. The pupils were this year invited to research and visually present less known facts about Europe. What we have seen in their work is quite striking. The works in this Calendar teach us about Europe and its wealth of different cultures,” Tyndall said.
“Diversity, both in terms of art and geography, is one of the main features of the awarded works. They depict festivals„ renowned figures and artefacts, important dates and historical facts, which equally contribute to their quality endowed with diversity of expression, lines and colours, different techniques and styles. They cover all of Europe, both as a mythological and a geographic concept, from the Norse gods in the North and the Agidagueda Art Festival in Portugal, in the West, to South-East Europe and the first restaurant in Europe, which was opened in Belgrade,” painter and chairwoman of the jury Ena Popović from Blace said.
High-school students from 34 cities and municipalities in South East and South West Serbia were invited to take part in the art competition for European PROGRES’ 2015 Calendar. The competition with the theme “Discover Europe”, which opened in October 2014, aimed to encourage secondary school pupils to pursue their artistic talents and inspire them to research and discover little known, yet interesting, facts about Europe, and be creative in visually presenting their findings to the public at large..
The 2015 European PROGRES Calendar comprises also the works of the following nine runners up who were awarded digital cameras today - Danilo Petrović from Vladičin Han, Diellzi Presheva from Preševo, Marija Mladenović and Marija ilić from Leskovac, Davor Filipović and Jovana Äorđević from Surdulica, Aleksandra Dugalić from Raška, Bojan Milovanović from Ivanjica and Miloš Bursać from Vranje. The professional jury selected the best 12 works gracing EU PROGRES’ 2015 Calendar from among 110 works submitted by pupils of 28 secondary schools in South East and South West Serbia.
