By Samantha Smith
Sounds of scratching pencils and bustling paper filled UC’s e-library on May 21st, 2014; as eager young artists from high schools around Phnom Penh competed to win UC’s annual high school art competition.
This year’s prize was a 3 day trip to Japan and 30,000 JPY. Students were required to submit an original piece of art work along with a written explanation of their piece and the best submissions were invited to attend the art competition finals on the 21st of May. Students wore nervous but determined expressions, as they worked hard to recreate their original submissions in the 4 hour session.
Students were able to choose between 5 topics; new world order thinking, preservation and protection of cultural heritage, peace safeguarding and development, humanitarian and charity efforts, and international cooperation.
The art work was judged based on the following criteria; content, artistic representation of content, creativity and style, artistic beauty, and realities of the painting. Upper management spent the evening of the 21st contemplating all the different pieces of artwork. They discussed the meaning and artistic representation of each piece of art before casting their first votes for the top 10. After narrowing the submissions down, management had heated discussions about the best artistic representation and the meaning being depicted. They took their time to review each written piece and discussed the meaning and purpose of the artwork in detail before casting their votes for the top 5.
Once the top 5 pieces had been chosen, H.E. Dr. Kao Kim Hourn, along with the other committee members chose the winner based on the criteria mentioned above.
The award ceremony was held on May 26th in the UC conference room. H.E. Dr. Kao Kim Hourn presided over the ceremony. In his speech, he encouraged the high school students to always work hard
and to continue their educations after graduation. He congratulated all of the contestants before the top 5 winners were announced.
In 5th place was Ms. Phou Kanhana from Happy Chandara High School, for her painting under the topic of New World Order Thinking. In 4th place was Mr. Siv Chantha from Hun Sen Phnom Penh Thmei High School, for his painting under the topic of Peace and Safeguarding Development. In 3rd place was Mr. Ung Porhay from Hun Sen Serey Pheap High School, for his painting under the topic of Peace and Safeguarding Development. In 2nd place was Ms. Chren Chey Sak from HenSen Chumpou Want High School, for her painting under the topic of Preservation and Protection of Cultural Heritage.
The 1st place winner was Ms. Ouk Kakruna from Back Touk High School, for her painting under the topic of New World Order Thinking.
UC would like to formally congratulate all the contestants for their outstanding artistic abilities and effort put into this competition. Good luck and best wishes to the winner, Ms. Ouk Kakruna for her trip to Japan and future endeavors to become a designer.
