Drawing by 11-year-old Kornelijas Balaišytė from Lithuania, drawn in the context of DrawWith Denmark - Green Together
From DrawHope (TegnHåb) to DrawWith Denmark - GreenTogether
In 2021, during COVID-19, UNESCO Creative City Viborg kicked off the project DrawHope (TegnHåb). At first locally and then shared amongst UNESCO partner cities. Children from around the world got involved and sent in their drawings about hope expressed through their individual and unique ways.
This continued in 2022 with 'Trust' as the main theme, and also through 2023 with 'DrawWIth Denmark - Green Together', and now the project has been selected to be presented during the biannual 42nd UNESCO General Conference in Paris.
UNESCO base their selection on its ability to show how 350 creative cities from around the world use culture and creativity to create a better future.
Henrik Holmskov, UNESCO Creative City Viborg project leader, will be representing Viborg Municipality and Viborg's local animation environment in Paris, where he will present DrawWith Denmark - Green Together, featured as a representative of one of many successful projects across the UNESCO Creative City Network.
Coming out of a local creative environment
The DrawWith Denmark - Green Together project in 2023 had many of the drawings animated locally in Viborg, and these animations will be exhibited across the world.
In a press release by Viborg Municipality (link), The Mayor of Viborg marks this achievement as a great acknowledgement of the local creative forces in Viborg:
- Viborg er verdenskendt for kreativitet og vores animationsmiljø, og det er noget, som vi er utrolig stolte af, og som vi politisk har prioriteret højt. I virkeligheden tror jeg, at de færreste danskere er klar over, den status Viborg har internationalt indenfor animation, og jeg håber, at denne fornemme anerkendelse kan være med til at udbrede kendskabet til Viborg som animationsby og til Danmark som et kreativt land - Mayor of Viborg, Ulrik Wilbek.
The Animation Workshop/VIA University College has been collaborating with UNESCO Creative City Viborg since its conception.
TAW's Center of Animation, Visualisation and Digital Storytelling in close collaboration with Viborg Municipality continuously work together to ensure that Viborg's creative animation environment reaches new heights and benefits not just the entertainment sector, which animation typically is associated with, but also across society's many other sectors.