ATHENS – The Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens has organized for the past seven years a painting contest for children ages 4-15, from Greece and abroad, with all participating works presented in the Annual Κids Painting Contest Exhibition. For the first time this year, due to the museum being closed under the recent lockdown, the exhibition turns digital and results in a completely new way of showing 26,500 children’s paintings.

This year’s contest, titled “I AM… How I see myself,” the children were invited to create paintings inspired by an ancient bronze mirror dating to 1200-1050 BC, which is exhibited in the Museum’s Thanos N. Zintilis Collection of Cypriot Antiquities. They had the opportunity to look at themselves, capture their own thoughts, and imagine their own world inside or outside the mirror. 

The 26,500 paintings by children from all over Greece and abroad are accessible online beginning on May 18, International Museum Day, through August 31, 2020. 

The Selection Committee members were artist Jannis Varelas, sculptress Nikomachi Karakostanoglou, photographer Panos Kokkinias, curator Polina Kosmadaki, and architect, visual artist, designer Xara Marantidou. They awarded 36 winners and 132 most distinguished works, which can be viewed online, alongside videos of dance and theater performances as well as home activities, centered around the theme of the mirror. 

More information about the Museum of Cycladic Art is available online: www.cycladic.gr.

Instagram: @cycladic_museum

The online exhibition: https://www.cycladickidscontest.com/.