Six students were awarded a total of $3,500 at the award ceremony for “Europe in the World: Perspectives of Community” competition Monday. The award ceremony was held on April 1 in the Amit Bhatia Libe Café and followed by a reception.
The competition, open to all undergraduate and graduate students, asked contestants to use various artistic mediums such as music and literature to address cultural or social expressions of identity, community and relationship in Europe, according to the contest’s guidelines.
The “Europe in the World” prizes were funded by a grant from the Cornell Institute for European Studies and the Cornell University Library, according to Kornelia Tancheva, the director of Olin and Uris Libraries. Tancheva added that “the competition was designed to stimulate student scholarship.”
Prof. Peter Katzenstein, government, delivered the keynote address, “Europe in the World: Some Reflections.”
In the speech, he advocated continued support for libraries and said the students’ work was a “celebration of the end of Eurocentrism.”
“Some of the projects are truly astonishing,” Katzenstein said.
Undergraduate and graduate students were reviewed separately by a panel of three judges across different disciplines.
Contestants were strongly encouraged to utilize digital and mixed media resources in their submissions, and were ultimately judged on their creativity, substance, scope and scholarship.
The winner received $1000, and the second and third place contestants received $500 and $250 respectively.
In the undergraduate group, Faye Tsakas ’13 took first place for her ethnographic short film, “Dans le Métro,” demonstrating the role of the Metro in French cinematic history.
“Use of public space is a starting point for cultural exploration,” Tsakas said, who plans to submit her work to experimental film festivals.
She filmed her project over the summer in Paris with a grant from the Frederic Conger Wood Fellowship, through which she spent time conducting field study in Europe and documented her research when she returned.
Anna Walling ’16 took second place for her presentation, entitled “Bridging the Gap: Architectural Design and the European Union’s Search for Cultural Form,” while Christopher Levesque ’13 won third place for his project, “Berlin Migration and its Political Effects on Immigrant Communities.”
In the graduate group, Amit Gilutz grad won first place, with Johannes C. Plambeck grad took second place and Diana Garvin took third. Their projects ranged from a string quartet and electronics set to a photography portfolio.
The competition entries are on display in Olin Library through Summer 2013.
Original Author: Rachel Weber