The creative competition “PORA to the Arctic! Without leaving your home” (the abbreviation sounds like russian “pora” which means “it’s high time”) conducted by the Arctic Development Project Office (PORA) together with the ArtIsolation movement.
According to the competition terms, the contestants had to make a photo interpretation of the picture devoted to the Arctic, an illustration of a literary work, a movie shot, a cartoon or a play fragment about the Far North, without using a photo editing tools.
The public relations manager of the Arctic Development Project Office Julia Nikitina told: “The participants created the images of Umka cub and the Snow Queen, shamans and reindeer herders, made a labrador dog pretend to be a polar bear and created the Arctic Ocean from paper scraps, fabric and broken plates. The youngest participant was not even two years old. More than 80 “remakes took part in the competition. We believe this is a good result, because the conditions were not simple. The participants tried their best looking for unusual approaches. Earlier, we had held an essay contest on the topic “Why do I dream to visit the Arctic? It is great that to do the task people delve into the topic. For example, creating a photo interpretation the authors got acquainted with artists, directors, poets and creators of other works about the Arctic. Through a fan story, they came to know the vast geographical area of our country”.
The contest works were placed on Facebook, in the ArtIsolation group, next to the original image so that the social network users could compare them.
The participant Tanya Tan by nickname became the winner. Together with her sons she created seven works.
“Thank you very much. This is so important to us. Though we live in Croatia and the boys were born here, their first language is Russian. I want them to be proud of their roots. You haven’t just given us a present, you’ve given us faith and hope for our future in Russia. It’s a sign,” the participant wrote.
In total, 13 people got prizes for their works. It was difficult for the organizers to choose a smaller number, given the uniqueness and charm of each work. All of them will remain in the PORA archive as a reminder of self-isolation and joint creative achievements.
According to Yulia Nikitina, PORA’s creative projects haven’t ended. There will be new ones.
Text: Julia Gubeladze, Photo: PORA press service
