Dear Shaded Viewers,
COVID-19 is still in our lives unfortunately the saying goes. if you draw the Amabie and show it to people you can be free of disease. I enlisted the aid of our youngest jury member ever, Margaux Coppola to go through all of the submissions and to choose her top three. And the winners are:
Davide Menapace @istitutomarangoni_firenze #alwaysupportalent #IMFirenze #IMMilano 2 – First Prize
Madhav Bahety @istitutomarangoni_firenze #alwaysupportalent #IMFirenze #IMMilano 2- Second Prize
Alexandra Mas – 3rd Prize
I congratulate all of the winners and thank Margaux Coppola for her time and collaboration.
“Stop the infection from spreading!”
The words appear to come straight from the beak of a creature with a bird’s head, human hair and a fish’s scaly body, in a recent public service announcement from Japan’s health ministry.
In the fight against COVID-19, a sea monster has emerged from 19th century Japanese folklore in countless new iterations — from art to food to fashion — as a symbol of hope, an internet meme and pop culture mascot.
Its name is Amabie, pronounced Ah-mah-bee-ey.
“In 1846, Amabie emerged from the ocean and spoke in human language, predicting six years of good harvests, followed by a wave of diseases,” says Kazuhiko Komatsu, an emeritus professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto.
The creature advised: “Draw me and show to the people, so that you can be free from disease,” Komatsu says.
The earliest image of Amabie appeared in 1846 in kawaraban, Japanese news sheets printed using clay or wood blocks.
Later,
Diane
