Category: Blog

Judging poetry category

I was given the 11-14 poetry to shortlist for the judges. It was a fun and a good experience to see how the behind the scenes judging process works. There was so much amazing work that made it extremely difficult to pick 50 to move forward.

Judging day (in person)

After the internal shortlisting the judges saw the work and gave them rankings, this converted into points to fairly count all the judges rankings. We had an in person judging day to make the choices that were tied, as a final round to cement the placements. It was interesting to see the decisions that took place and how judges fought for the pieces they really liked.

Month of the military child entries

With the International competition over and the start of April, I was in charge of the entries for the Month of the Military Child. This competition is less popular than the international competition and is only open to entries from Britain, so the entries weren’t overwhelming.

I have now finished the entries and the competition is currently being judged.

Working on SIP

I have also been working on my SIP at the same time, more about that in the SIP section.

Winners socials and MP letters

For the international competition I have been working on making the social media posts to announce and introduce the winners who want to be featured on the Instagram and Facebook.

Also getting the letters to MP’s for UK winners ready, that way they can get a congratulatory letter from their MP and maybe a certificate ceremony.

More grants

I have also been working on finding and applying to more grants for the charity.

I finished all my work on the competition entries now and I got to do the shortlisting for a category. Exited to see what work I’ll have to do when we go back.

There were a some differences during the group short listing for art, but it all worked itself out in the end.

During the break I am going to be working on my report and 2nd SIP.

NSI is considering a new logo so we’ve been thinking about what that could look like. The idea has changed multiple times but here are some sketches of ideas we had considered.

One of my colleagues had an event with Canterbury Christ Church University in Kent. It was a day of workshops were the year 7s were asked to take what they heard from the key note speaker and reflect on putting themselves in her shoes. The day started with us setting everything up and then the schools arrives. The keynote speaker was telling us about her experience living in Afghanistan and the how with the Taliban taking over she could no longer go to school. Explaining about secret schools and her journey as a refugee in the UK, as well as her continuing her work to help provide education for Afghan girls.

It was very inspiring and it was a very interesting day. Seeing the practitioners do the workshops was nice and will be helpful for my SIP. It was also nice to see the children engage so well with the prompt.

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The International competition is closing today. So I have been very focused on data entry and responding to questions that the participants have been emailing. We are at over 2,000 entries and they are coming in quickly, but I should be able to get the entries processed within time.

Yesterday we went up to Manchester for the reception of the Bridge of Sunflowers Exhibition.

This exhibition displays works made by Ukrainian children about the war and how it is making them feel/ how it is affecting them. It was really moving to see all these pieces about how the war was affecting them and their families, especially with the descriptions and background information about some of the artists specific situation.

We helped set up the extra pieces for the reception and took some photos for NSI’s socials. The reception was nice, the Lord Mayor of Manchester was there, some of the local school children that took part in the workshops read their poetry out loud. Overall it was a very nice event!

This is my personal favourite piece from the exhibition. The description attached to the piece:

‘Karolina from Lviv.

The Mum of the hare family is comforting the little babies during an arial attack of the invading russian army on the ruins of a settlement.’

Last week I worked on new grant information for the organisation, wrote up some application letters, and handed the information off to my boss.

I was also given the opportunity to curate for another exhibition. For works that will be displayed during the BISA conference. This is work I’ll be starting next week as the conference is in June and I am currently quite busy.

On Thursday I will be going up to Manchester with work for the reception of the exhibition Bridge of Sunflowers. This exhibition is composed of artwork by young Ukrainian artists from the city of Lviv. The works explore the impacts of the ongoing conflict, as well as the hopes and dreams of those living through it.

Yesterday I brought in my finished model of the modular exhibition structure I designed, and Katie liked it a lot. Soooooooo, they’re going ahead with getting it built!! It’s going to be so cool to see something I designed actually being made and used, also it will look very nice in my portfolio. YAY

I also signed up for a mentorship program with James Frost a creative director, this is something I’ve been interested in recently as I want to learn more about creative direction and give it a go myself. It’s been very informative and I’ve been able to learn about industry practice and what it takes to collaborate with brands. Essentially the correct way to reach out to brands and present your ideas to them.

Before the christmas break I had started these feedback cards. I finshed them last week and they just arrived on Wednesday.

I am happy with how they turned out, they were made using students art work from a workshop done in Naples. They will be used for the summer exhibition and also as little postcards.

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At this weekly meeting we spoke about AI, and my placement provider said that they would like less AI usage to avoid work without passion or interest. I’m pretty happy about this, but I kind of am a big AI hater so maybe others in the office feel differently.