The winners of the 4th High School Design Competition at Arkin University of Creative Arts and Design (ARUCAD) received their awards at a ceremony held at the ARUCAD Art Gallery on the evening of Tuesday, October 17th. All the works submitted to the competition by 77 students were displayed, and certificates were presented to the winners.
The fourth edition of the Design Competition for high school students, held in Northern Cyprus, Turkey, and internationally, was on the theme of “Time Travel” this year. The jury members, including university founder Erbil Arkin, Faculty of Arts Professor, Dr. Turan Aksoy, Faculty of Design Associate Professor, Dr. Cem Yardımcı, Ceramic Department Chair Associate Professor, Dr. Elçin Şener, New Media and Communication Department Chair Associate Professor, Dr. Çağdaş Öğüç, and Digital Game Design Department Chair Associate Professor, Dr. Yunus Luckinger, evaluated over 100 works created in various disciplines.
The first place in the competition went to Ece Tügen, a student at from the Ankara Fine Arts High School, the second place to Hayal Yüksel, from the Ankara Itri Fine Arts High School, and the third place to Mikael Bucha, from the Aitchison College in Pakistan. The Erbil Arkin Special Awards were won by Vitaliya Nemtsova from Moscow 2054 High School in Russia and Tauken Bekzhan from 89 Secondary School in Kazakhstan. The winner of the Social Media Award, determined by popular vote, was Zeynep Ceren Anlar, a student at Turkish Maarif College in Northern Cyprus. The top students were presented with full scholarships, cash prizes, and certificates of achievement at ARUCAD. In addition, contributions were made to fulfil the needs of the art classrooms of the top three winning schools.
The ceremony began with the participation of the high school students who took part in the competition, their families, ARUCAD academics, students, and staff, and featured a short video presentation showcasing the works of past competition winners.
In his welcoming speech at the ceremony, ARUCAD Rector, Prof. Dr. Asım Vehbi expressed his delight at the competition, which began with only 12 applications four years ago and which has now received 77 applications from Cyprus, Turkey and six further countries. Vehbi said, “Another source of pride for us that 7 of our students who ranked in the competition are pursuing their education in various departments at ARUCAD. We will continue our efforts to make our competition even more international. I would like to thank the Arkin family for providing this opportunity to our young people, the jury members for carefully reviewing the submitted works, our dear students for their participation, and my colleagues who prepared the ceremony.”
Beginning his speech by expressing his happiness at seeing these creative works, ARUCAD founder Erbil Arkin stated, “I can see here that creativity is still alive, diversity is still alive, and art is still alive. We and you are doing the right thing at this point. Our country also needs these kinds of efforts. I want to once again express the pride I feel for the students who participated in the competition, the academics, and ARUCAD.”
After the certificate presentation ceremony, the award night continued with a cocktail party attended by the talented young people, their parents, and the ARUCAD community.