An eye made up of the European flag was one of those vibes that spread around the continent. “This is how I see my world with Europe” commented 18-year old Aleksandrina Mitkova Tozeva, an art student from Bulgaria, on her artwork “Europe in my eyes”, which stands out as the winning photo of the European Vibes art competition. Together with 24 other pictures her artwork was selected out of the several hundred contributions to the competition running from March to July 2007.
The visitors of the European vibes online platform rated directly their most interesting vibes while European identity, artistic quality and personal liking were the three criteria on which the jury based their ratings; jury members included Monika Oelz from CaféBabel.com, Margot Wallström and Claus Sørensen from the European Commission and Pat Cox from the European Movement International.
When going through the winning vibes one could find a variety of visions and views of Europe. Among the artworks a seized moment in a European city, a throw-away of a passport, EU’s Prime Ministers dancing to the rhythms of Eurovision, the future of Europe in the hands of its youth. One of the most captivating vibes of the exhibition is the winning video “Colorful Europe” that plays with the colors of the EU Flags in a groovy manner, as creator Peter Vadocz wanted it to. To accompany the picture and video vibes the meaningful sound of the winning song “Hvis du Vidste” was also produced and distributed on CD and through the web.
A political view, a political hope can be expressed in more than just words.
The winners of the three categories joined the European Vibes celebrations in Copenhagen, Denmark on October 19-21 2007 where the awards ceremony was followed by vivid discussions on further pursuing an artistic, audiovisual dialogue on the future of Europe. “A political view, a political hope can be expressed in more than just words” commented Helene Odgaard, managing the production of the winning song.
From the Copenhagen Business School to the Europa Institute of Edinburgh and the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, the exhibition and related events were hosted in various enthralling venues that secured the attention of youngsters and invited them in sharing their own vibes for their European future.
Of special note, the only non European venue of the exhibition was the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the new library of Alexandria, Egypt. Festive activities that lasted between 18-23 November 2007 inspired the thousands of visitors while the Library is considering setting up a similar project that would cover the broader Euro Mediterranean region.
Although the project is officially over, there are still three European Vibes stops in January 2008 that include the universities of Vilnius, Lithuania and Sofia, Bulgaria as well as at the Centro Jacques Delors in Lisbon, Portugal.
The results of the project, including all the winning entries with comments from their authors as well as visitors’ feedback will be further communicated to the European Institutions during the Slovene Presidency of the European Union.
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