Stimulart Award is a competition for creative people organized by the five Stimulart cities in each year of project duration.
The focus group and the topic of the competitions vary every year at each location. According to the Stmulart Award manual the first call addresses teens with creative objects linked to their city’s identity, the second urges creatives to produce artistic pieces, while the third call focuses on creative services (the order of calls is optional for the partner cities).
Each Stimulart city will have three champions at the end of the project and the partnership will vote for the ultimate Stimulart Award winner from the pool of local champions.
Due to Covid19 restrictions Stimulart Award has some delays at the partners.
1st Stimulart Award local champion from Jászberény (HU) – May 2020
The first local champion is Sára Jázmin Nagy, 17 years of age, a student at Lehel Vezér Secondary Grammar School.
The first call in Jászberény targeted the teens asking them to produce a creative piece which fits in one’s hand and can be associated with the city. The youngsters could use any technique and materials possibly in combination. Sára, the winner produced a room decoration, using a special tech of FELTING (dry, using a needle) with traditional local patterns of the Jászság. Handing over the award to her was postponed due to the Covid19 restrictions but was already possible on the 19th of May in the Townhall of Jászberény.
1st Stimulart Award local champion from Naumburg (DE) – July 2020
On 13 July 2020, the Naumburg team announced its winner of the 1st STIMULART Award.
It is the baker’s family Block, who runs a cake shop in Naumburg. They took part in the competition with a special creative product: the Naumburg stollen.
This stollen was first mentioned in a document back in 1329, even if today it tastes a bit different than 700 years ago. It contains sweet cherriesinstead of raisins, because cherries are closely connected to an old Naumburg saga.
See more info on: https://www.stimulart-award.de/
1st Stimulart Award local champion from AMBERG (DE) – Nov 2020
“Time capsule – a message for the 21st century”
The Mayor of Amberg, Michael Cerny, officially announced the winners on 4th November, and congratulated them for their creativity in connecting their work to the cultural and industrial heritage of the city. Michael Cerny also highlighted the importance of CCI for the city life and economy and reassessed his interest and support in the next phases of the StimulART project. Due to Coronavirus restrictions on public events, the award ceremony needed to be held online rather than as an in person event.
1st Place, Marion Mack, artist, for her project “Homeland/Frozen in Time” (Orig: Heimat/Frozen in Time)
The winner is a decorative object made out of glass, salt and iron – all three being defining traits of Amberg’s cultural and industrial heritage. Back in the Middle Ages, iron ore was exported to Bad Reichenhall in Souteast Germany via river ways. On the way back, boats were loaded with salt, which was then traded from Amberg. Later on, Amberg and the region shone with the Philip Rosenthal glassworks, which would also be used in the “Glass Cathedral” by Walter Gropius.
This combination of glass, salt and iron produces unexpected results. The artist Marion Mack explains: “Substances combined with heated glass usually change their shape and color in unexpected ways. Salt transforms in gas and then crystallizes until the glass mass solidifies: Frozen in Time. The iron pins in the glass behave very differently. These float unaffected by the high temperatures in the hot glass mass until they solidify with the glass: Frozen in Time”.
