World Children Festival - Washington 2007

NEWS RELEASE
June 29, 2007

CONTACT:
Phone: (202) 530-1000
Fax: (202) 530-1080
E-mail: media@icaf.org
Url: http://www.icaf.org/

THE 2007 FESTIVAL A TRULY GLOBAL EVENT

The World Children’s Festival on the National Mall in Washington, DC on June 23-25, 2007 was a huge success for the International Child Art Foundation. Approximately 10,000 attendees enjoyed a variety of workshops and hands-on activities, including craft-making, drumming circles, and exercises for peace and cultural understanding. They enjoyed performances by youth groups from around the world and created a piece of America with LEGO.

The Festival included an exhibition of children’s art on the theme My Favorite Sport, held right across the National Gallery of Art. Exhibited were finalist artworks from the ICAF’s third Arts Olympiad, chosen from more than three million entries. Seventy-four finalists from U.S. states and foreign countries came together at the Festival, along with their teachers and parents. These visual artists were joined by more than 200 youth performers as well as educators and experts from Adler School of Professional Psychology, California State University Los Angeles, Columbia University, Georgetown University, The George Washington University, Nazareth College, NC State University, The Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center, and the U.S. Forest Service.

Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo (Representative from Guam), General Jim Campbell (Director of the Army Staff) and Fred Lazarus IV (President, Maryland Institute, College of Art) were among the speakers who gave welcoming remarks. Sponsored by creative global companies including Adidas and LEGO, the World Children’s Festival was covered by CNN, Fox, Voice of America, Al Jazeira, Sharjah TV, Canal Futura as well as the Washington Post, the Washington Times, Kuwait News and several other media outlets.

“The 2007 World Children’s Festival was the largest celebration in the world of children’s creativity and imagination,” said Dr. Ashfaq Ishaq, ICAF executive director. “The 2007 Festival attracted far more media coverage than the ICAF’s previous international festivals in 1999 and 2003. This shows that the public is paying more attention now to children’s creative development and the need to foster cross-cultural empathy.”

The ICAF serves as the national art and creativity organization for American children and the only international art for the world’s children. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization registered in April 1997 in the District of Columbia, the ICAF integrates the art with science, sport and technology to nurture children’s creativity and develop empathy - preconditions for a more just, prosperous and nonviolent world. www.icaf.org

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1350 Connecticut Avenue, NW • Washington, DC 20036-1702
Phone: +1 202-530-1000 • Fax: +1 202-530-1080 • Email: childart@icaf.org

Why Art and Sport

As a recent Art Olympiad participant, Chanjuan Ma (12) from New Jersey explained her entry as an inspiration to others to spend more time playing sports rather than sitting indoors watching television. Most likely, Chanjuan does not know she shares a similar belief with many artists who have worked throughout the twentieth-century.
Beginning in the early 1900s, avant-garde (a French term
meaning art that questions what is accepted in society) movements rejected the idea of being passive and inactive, especially when it came to viewing art. Just like the goals of Chanjuan, avant-garde artists did not want the viewer to turn off their brain like a couch potato. Instead, they wanted to engage them and inspire individual responses.
By combining art and sport for the third Arts Olympiad, the idea of passively viewing and making art has been transformed. Art is no longer separate from the everyday, nor is creativity disconnected from such common activities as sports. Roles such as artist or athlete are no longer limited to what is commonly accepted. Cultivating the imagination is dependent on the freedom of questioning
and the redefi ning of what is and what could be.
“Art and sport have the power to change the world,
the power to inspire, the power to unite people in a way
that little else can. Art and sport speak to people in a
language they understand. Art and sport can create
hope where there was once only despair. They are
instruments for peace, even more powerful than
governments.”
– Nobel Laureate Nelson R. Mandela

On the Road to the 2007
World Children’s Festival:
The distribution and completion of Arts Olympiad
lesson plans distributed to schools worldwide
has passed, but each participating country has
it’s own story to tell, as does each child artist.
Implementing programs in nearly 100 countries
is no small task, but thanks in part to the ICAF
partner organizations, the positive infl uence of
the Arts Olympiad was able to reach even the
most unexpected places. By using the universality
of sport, this creative program asked participants
to look at its message and values that provide the foundations for Olympic ideals. With the intent on
balancing the development of the mind, body and character of children, the Arts Olympiad translates
into any language the global need for tolerance, friendship and creative problem solving.
The Arts Olympiad allows the celebration of different cultures—for each participating country has it’s own identity and interpretation unique to its customs, ultimately
influencing how each child approached the theme
“My Favorite Sport”. However, the diversity did not separate countries or children from each other.
The simple task of picking up a pencil or paintbrush,
no matter where, connected the imaginations of children
in identifying a shared vision of coexistence.
In June 2007, the world’s children will gather in Washington,
DC for the World Children’s Festival to live and experience the reality of the connections they imagined onto paper. Finding the empowerment to become leaders, the festival will lay the foundation for cultivating and inspiring the
creative potential and tolerant minds of the minds of the
world’s next generation.

Olympic Rainbow
in Romania

Held in Brasov, the Romanian Arts Olympiad
Exhibition took place in November
2005. As sponsors, the Euro–Asia Promotion
and Cultural Foundation, the European
Literature Circle and Brasov County’s Federation
of Youth NGO’s supported the last stages
of the competition, including the fi nal selection
from 33 regional fi nalists. As a truly national
event, from the widespread involvement of
schools to the national media coverage of the
Olympiad, the winning artwork helped bridged
local and global ideals together with a multinational
vision and message to the world.
As head juror, professor and President of the
Romanian Artist Union, Nicolae Daicu declared
Cosmin Moga (12) from central Transylvania the
offi cial winner. His painting, Olympic Rainbow,
communicated a discovery of the Olympic spirit
through a child’s eye, unifying diverse color and
shapes while capturing the gesture and grace of