A 10-year-old pupil from Poplar has beaten off competition from over 1,300 young artists to win this year’s Young London Print Prize.
As world leaders gather for the UN climate summit in Egypt, young people from across London have been invited to express their own artistic response to the climate crisis. The winning entry by Sara Ahmed, a Year 6 pupil from Mayflower Primary School in Tower Hamlets, depicts a single plastic bottle floating in the ocean. It was made using clay and ink with a technique called relief printing, and chosen by a group of 17-year-old students who judged all the submissions.
The second prize was scooped by Deimantas Pocuis from Discovery Primary School in Thamesmead for his striking print of a Hawksbill turtle and third prize by Prithvi Anish, a pupil at Foxfield Primary School in Woolwich, for her beautiful abstract monoprint entitled ‘The Sinking Ship’.
The Young London Print Prize is a competition launched during the Covid pandemic which aims to inspire and showcase the work of young artists and offer insight into how young people see the climate crisis. Uniquely, all work is created and judged by young people themselves. 1,311 pupils from twenty-three schools took part this year.
Ben Jones, who teaches the winning pupil, Sara Ahmed, said: “Projects like this showcase the creativity and ambition in places like East London. They allow schools to collaborate with arts organisations in a meaningful way. And it’s a total joy to see how excited our pupils get when their work is viewed by the public in a space outside of school.”
You can see the work of these young artists on display at Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair from 3-6 November 2022. They are being exhibited alongside more than 500 artists from across the globe, including big names such as Grayson Perry, Yinka Shonibare, Gavin Turk and Julian Opie at Woolwich Works, London’s latest creative district. www.woolwichprintfair.com.
