Illustrators from Mexico, Syria and Iran win the Sharjah Children's Book Illustration Prize
Behind each illustration there is a story, a colourful poem that moves our feelings, an unreal character that could be real, a fact that can become fiction. To tell. That is the word that brings together what is intended to be expressed when imagination and hands are put to work.
A drawing can tell us as much, or more, than words. It can transmit through its strokes or its outlined lines, with pure or mixed techniques, with its colours, its gestures, the expressions, the light, the environment... what a text sometimes does not achieve, or at least not with the same force.
Strength. This is another of the words that would define the winning illustrations of the 11th edition of the Sharjah Children's Book Illustration Award, whose winners were announced at the Children's Reading Festival and in which women took the lead with five prizes out of the six awarded. The awards were presented by the Chairman of the Book Authority, Ahmed bin Rakad al-Amiri, in a ceremony that was as brief as it was emotional.
The jury, which included the Spaniard Zuriñe Aguirre, awarded first prize to the Mexican Mariana Alcántara for her work "Mi pequeño pájaro", while the second and third prizes went to the Syrian Lina Naddaf for "El misterio de la ciudad perdida", and to the Iranian Majid Zakeri Younesi for "Mitología persa". Of the three honourable mentions, two went to Latin American artists, the Chilean María Catalina Vasquez Huisbus for "La memoria del estambre" and the Ecuadorian María Estefanía Santos Gallegos for "Donde encuentres la realidad y la ficción", and the third to the Palestinian Baraa Alawoor with her work entitled "Felicidad". And this is how the winners admitted to being: happy, not only for the recognition of their respective works, but also because they could open the doors to other opportunities, to other challenges.
This is a highly prestigious competition that has received 1,300 entries from 280 participants from 46 countries. China, Lithuania, Poland, Jordan, Iran, Egypt, the Philippines and Spain are some examples of its impact. It was not easy for the jury to select the 235 illustrations by 85 authors before defining the champions. The standard was very high, as can be seen in the exhibition at the Sharjah Exhibition Centre, which was visited by the city's governor, His Highness Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad al-Qasimi, on the occasion of the inauguration of this year's festival. This can be confirmed by those who stroll among the panels where these very varied and high quality works are exhibited, such as that of the Spaniard Alexandra Sternin, although the Basque illustrator Zuriñe Aguirre, who recently travelled to the emirate to deliberate with the rest of the jury members, has also confirmed this to us.
Illustrator Mariana Alcántara did not hide her excitement and recalled how in 2018 she won the third prize, "visiting this city changed my life and profession, thanks to that prize I dedicated myself fully to illustration", she says. Now, this first place, "reaffirms my ability and my dream of making stories for children of all ages", says the artist excitedly as she recalls those who paved her way to Sharjah: her professor at the San Carlos Academy of the UNAM, the illustrator Gerardo Suzan, who passed away this year, "he was always looking for competitions for his students to give visibility to their work", and her colleague Esther Ilmensa, who was awarded in previous editions.
A child, a bird, a cage, freedom. Clean, black, red strokes... Mariana Alcántara would like to transmit tenderness through the illustrations that have made her worthy of this award in which she has used a mixed technique and in which she uses the white spaces as a narrative part of the story. A true story, she tells us, which narrates the care of a bird, which she herself found, and which is cared for in the drawing by a boy, who is actually her father, with her being a surprised spectator. "He took care of him and then opened the door for him to go to freedom, and with that emotion I made the illustration," she says.
The Mexican artist works in Mexico with Alboroto ediciones. Now, she is negotiating whether "Su pequeño pájaro" will become a book, if this prize is presented as a springboard. For the moment, this Mexican, yet another winner of this competition, celebrates the success of Mexican illustrators "because Mexico has a lot to say, there are many Mexicans and many Mexican men and women who want to transmit what we feel in the present and, of course, in the future".
And from Mexico to Syria, to this Arab country where war broke out more than ten years ago. It was with great satisfaction that the artist Lina Naddaf collected her second prize for her illustrations presented under the title "El misterio de la ciudad perdida". Three drawings full of feelings, showing us the sadness and tears of a couple with their cat climbing a tree while their houses are on their shoulders; a little girl dressed in red embracing her city; or children playing around a fountain...
Delicate and beautiful are the illustrations presented by the Iranian Majid Zakiri Younesi under the name "Persian Mythology", the only man to win a prize in this edition, who posed happily surrounded by his colleagues. "It's a very important day for me," he said after receiving the sculpture in recognition of his work. Only two colours, black and red, take on great strength to show us this mythical world, full of small details, and in which women play a major role. Horses ridden by women who seem to be flying in this natural environment of trees and flowers... The author has also used a mixed technique.
Two of the honourable mentions went to Latin America: the Ecuadorian María Estefanía Santos reflected in her work the legend of Cantuña, with which she returned to her childhood in Quito, to that deal with the devil made by a man who would build a church but who turned out to be very vague. Santos, she says, has tried, using a digital technique, but with the manual base of silkscreen printing, to mix legend and reality, "two colour palettes, one for fantasy and the other for reality, which then merge". She is both nervous and happy to see a dream come true that she did not believe in, to the point of thinking it was a mistake. Another project on the Galapagos Islands, submitted at the time of the pandemic, had already been selected and shown, but she never thought it would be among the six winners. Now, she hopes to have greater visibility, "but being an illustrator takes time and I prefer to go step by step, although with great enthusiasm", she explains to Atalayar while she piles up memories and ideas such as her gratitude to her teacher Santiago González, her passion for storytelling and the world of books or her fondness for collecting children's stories.
With "La memoria del estambre", the Chilean Catalina Vasques delves into this world of forgetfulness and the possibility of remembering that yesterday and reconnecting with the environment through the handicrafts that were once made, perhaps as a child. For her illustrations, starring a tender old woman, she used elements from her own family, such as photos, and her memories. "I have a bad memory. I have always knitted because my grandmother taught me", says this illustrator who has used wool and fabrics for her work, which mixes materials and a manual technique with digital, "I like the fact that there is manuality behind the digital". Although she has not been working in illustration for more than five years, she recognises that she was born with a pencil in her hand and that her great passion is the recovery of history, and that is what she would like to transmit to children, "so that they don't forget traditional culture, so that they don't lose their customs". She currently makes books for Easter Island, "they are texts on traditional culture" with this aim, but along these lines she has also written a book on the history of the poets of the 18th century, "the illiterate poets" who were singers and who came from the countryside to the city in countries such as Chile and Mexico.
Happy, like the rest of her colleagues, about this prize, Vasques is enthusiastic about the challenge of entering the Arab market: "It would be a great learning and study, because in each culture, for example, colours have their own meaning". Time will tell, but for the moment, she is happy with the happiness produced by this mention and for sharing the prize with two Latin American and three Arab illustrators, which "shows the openness of the Emirate and its commitment to diversity".
The last special mention went to Palestine, to the illustrator Baraa Alawoor. Her drawings reflect, she tells Atalayar, a true story that took place in Gaza, her city, during an Israeli bombardment. Some children saved a fish from the bombing, which was seen by the cameraman, and they told him that they also wanted to save the birds.
This story inspired her to create "something full of hope, like a journey between the children and this fish, how they get to know each other and how they build a relationship with each other". Alawoor emphasises in his story, painted in black and in which the blue of the fish's eye stands out, the importance of friendship and how these little ones help their fish friend to return to the sea, a dangerous place because of the enemy. The children manage to save him and also save the planet, and thus, with this message and its symbolism, the artist also wants to transmit hope in the face of the real history of the Palestinians.