Winners of crowd-sourcing of sketches

Nila foundation announced the winners from crowd-sourcing of sketches of which 14 sketches will be used for designing ‘Puzha Malayalam’ a book on status of rivers in Kerala. The crowd-sourcing of sketches on the theme of ‘my river’ saw enthusiastic response from 620 global citizens from Austria, Bahrain, Germany, India, Kuwait, Mexico, Oman, Slovania, Srilanka and UAE.

14 best entries were selected by an expert panel of artists and environmentalists consisting of chairman of Kerala Lalita Kala Academy, CN Karunakaran, Mathrubhumi chief artist Madanan, cartoonist Venu, Dr. Latha Unnikrishnan of River research centre, CK Sujith Kumar of Nila foundation and Jayakumar C of Thanal on the 28^th April 2010 at Riverside Retreat, Cheruthuruthy, Kerala.

The selected entries came from Abhay PP (7, Balussery, India), Divij T (9, Bangalore, India), Eva Koegl (9, Vienna, Austria), Gayathri PS (10, Thrissur, India), Harikrishnan MV ( 16, Kottakkal, India), Harshitha VV (16, Kannur, India), Priyamvadha – (11, Pondicherry, India), Rajendran PP (32, Perumbavoor, India), Rajesh Babu ( 36, Dubai, UAE (2 entries)), Salsabeel(14, Mangalam, India), Sarath P (19, Kannur, India), Surya Mohan(8 , Thrikanappuram, India), Vijil(17, Kannur, India).

Three entries from Atheena S Sharma (10, Codacal, India), Manav D (7, Kozhikode, India) and Priya Sundaravalli (41, Pondicherry, India) received special mention from the judges.

Irrespective of the high number of participation, the judges commented that the standards of the entry were quite average. “There were hardly any sketches were ‘river’ came across as a life experience irrespective of the age group. Most people attempted to share the knowledge of rivers from multi-media including TV, rather than from any personal experience. This seems to have limited the creativity of the person". Judges commented that the "sketches weren’t successful to influence a new or unique visual language. Imagery used was from old-school and there were tendency amongst some of them to imitate mainstream artists. Most of the sketches expressed the visible environmental damages of rivers; however, we hardly noticed any expressions of a rich and wild river. “

Since most of the people in urban areas don’t get much time to observe a river, the judging committee unanimously suggested that they be given opportunities to know a river better. Based on this, Nila Foundation will be offering a river journey in partnership with River Research Centre in Chalakudy and The Blue Yonder, details of which will be shared shortly.

Prakash M, co-ordinator of Puzha Malayalam commented, “We were impressed by seeing the over-whelming response from public. Who would have thought that we would get entries from as far as Mexico? This once again gives us the confidence to build up a global movement for rivers. Nila is probably only a trigger. We congratulate all the winners whose sketches will be released in public on 5 June 2010. Some of the sketches that came in the shortlist might also find place in the book, websites, and other retail products that we are designing for raising funds for the foundation.”

CN Karunakaran, Madanan and Venu contributed impromptu sketches of Nila that they saw in front of their eyes from the river-facing restaurant at Riverside Retreat. The book containing the sketches and 14 chapters on status of rivers in Kerala will be published on the 5 June 2010.

Please follow us on email, twitter and facebook for regular updates.