Turkish cartoonist wins first prize at Aydın Doğan Cartoon Contest

Deniz Çınar MUĞLA - Hürriyet Daily News

The international committee, which gathered at Bodrum’s Işıl Club, evaluated 300 cartoons by 214 artists from 43 countries. The award ceremony of the competition will be held in September. DHA photo

A Turkish cartoonist has come out on top at the 31st Aydın Doğan Cartoon Contest, which kicked off in Bodrum on June 17 with a day-long session where judges got together to select the winner.

Kürşat Zaman, who was awarded with the third prize in the competition in 2010, won the first prize this year. His winning work depicts a scene where a military helicopter delivers the coffins of those who died in a war as families await their deceased loved ones around a baggage carousel.

The second prize of the contest went to Iranian artist Mojtaba Heidarpanah and third prize went to Krzysztof Grzondziel, who was last year’s winner.

Cartoons by Doğan Arslan, Akın Candemir, Menekşe Çam and Burak Ergin from Turkey, Rafael Correa and Rodrigo Machado da Rosa from Brazil, Pawel Kuczynski from Poland, Peter Nieuwendijk from Netherland, Alireza Pakdel, Sajad Rafeei, and Farzaneh Vazifitabar from Iran, Zhang Wei from China all won Merit Awards at this year’s contest.

The winner, Zaman, was born in Antalya in 1974. He has participated in many competitions and been awarded over 60 prizes since 2002. He has had two solo exhibitions in Istanbul, and participated in many group exhibitions in Turkey.

A total of 814 cartoonists from 70 countries joined the competition with 2,556 pieces this year.

The international committee, which gathered at Bodrum’s Işıl Club, evaluated 300 cartoons by 214 artists from 43 countries, which had already been chosen by the pre-selection committee.

The selection committee was headed by Liza Donnelly, who is an award-winning cartoonist and writer for the New Yorker Magazine and Forbes. The jury also consists of famous figures Ercan Akyol, Latif Demirci, Selçuk Demirel, Piyale Madra and Tan Oral from Turkey, and Dokhshid Ghodratipour from Iran, Moacir Knorr Gutterres from Brazil, Catherine Meurisse from France, Lichuan Xia from China and Anita O’Brien from London, who is the director of the Cartoon Museum in London.

‘Mirrors of sadness and happiness’

Aydın Doğan Foundation Executive Board Chair Candan Fetvacı said the selection committee had a hard time choosing the winning cartoons, just like every year.

“Our competition mirrors the sadness and happiness of people around the world,” she said, adding that there were cartoons about wars and violence, as well as more hopeful ones.

Kürşat Zaman's winning cartoon.

Fetvacı also said the forthcoming award ceremony, scheduled for September, would be “like a street festival,” at which a drawing session would be held for children and youngsters.

“We will draw together with children. It is more helpful if people learn to use their creativity to express their thoughts from a young age. Solutions can be found easily if there is a dialogue via words or lines or songs. We hope the world will be a more peaceful place [with these efforts],” he said.

 The selection committee head, Donelly, said she hoped the messages given by the cartoons would be “listened to by politicians more often.”

The winner of the contest, Zaman, will receive $8,000, while the winner of the second and third prizes will be given $5,000 and $3,500 respectively. The other awarded cartoons will net their drawers $500.

The award winning cartoons will all be displayed at the Milta Bodrum Marina Osmanlı Tersanesi Kaymakamlık Art Gallery between June 18 and 26.