Renowned artist, and the founder of Farouk Hosny Foundation for Culture and Arts, Farouk Hosny, talked about the foundation's newly launched prize during an interview with the prestigious Radio Monte Carlo on Wednesday.
Commenting on the foundation's role in encouraging young and rising talents in the Egyptian scene of arts, and the latest founded prize by it, he said: "We opened the submissions for the third edition of art awards for five different fields in September: photography, painting, sculpture, art critique, and architecture. Those five awards are presented annually."
The former culture minister highlighted: "However, we launched a new prize this year to be dedicated to a creative figure without following any age restrictions. It is called a grand lifetime achievement award, and iconic author Mohamed Salmawy was appointed as its chairman by the foundation's board of trustees members due to his cultural value, and stand."
[gallery jnewsslider="true" jnewsslider_title="Farouk Hosny Foundation's Board of Trustees Meeting for the New Prize" ids="281042,281043,281044,281045,281047,281048"]
In addition, he continued that the amount which is EGP 100,000 of the prize is not equal to the figure's cultural value. Therefore, the selected icon who would win the prize wouldn't be only from the scene of arts, but he could be a cinema figure or author.
The artist explained that the foundation will select one figure as it is a prize awarded by a private foundation, explaining that these efforts were done by the foundation to leave a positive mark in the scene, and to encourage the rising creative young talents.
Regarding the role of the foundation in supporting creative talents, Hosny affirmed: "I still believe that the value of the award is greater than its amount; we introduce new artists to the whole society, and they are widely acknowledged in the whole Arab world as media interested in shedding the light on those talents."
He resumed: "We don't take anything, we are just following the concept of giving, and encouraging, the amount of the prize couldn't be the only real motive of the prize, but introducing the works of those young artists is the essential purpose and motive of the prize."
"It was surprising to see all those talented young artists and researchers. For example, the researchers who applied to Art Critique Award were more than expected. 28 participants from 26 governorates contributed to such a competition. This encouraged us to launch another prize in Architecture, and we received a few participants during the period of submission."
However, a bigger number applied to it shortly before the deadline of the submission period. The number of its participants reached 30. All participants were passionate about architecture and it was important to back those artists as the architectural features in Egypt became not as known and presented before. So, encouraging young architects to find the soul of the Egyptian architects is necessary. Egypt is walking towards depending more and more on youth," he added.
After that, Hosny revealed that the foundation succeded in continuing its activities regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic as Gezira Art Center which hosted the foundation's activities and it had a garden and several exhibition halls which helped in preventing any crowds, and applying social distancing codes. In addition, all protective measures are applied strictly against the emergence of the virus.
Finally, the artist concluded his interview by mentioning the features of the real creative figure that would be honored. He described that this figure should be the most influential, innovative, and adventurous, continuing, the forms and levels of creativity nowadays are somehow different than the past.
Follow the latest news on Google News
