The International Children's Art Exhibition Lidice was founded in 1967 to commemorate the memory of the child victims from the Czech village of Lidice and all other children who died in war conflicts. This originally national exhibition became an international in 1973 and has become a well-known exhibition literally all over the world. The exhibition's peaceful message is all children's wish to live in a world without wars. Children create works of art in memory of village Lidice, destroyed in June 1942, in the hope that the horrors of war will not be repeated.

Slovenia is one of the traditional participants of the Lidice exhibition and Slovenian artworks are very positively evaluated. More than 14527 works by children from 77 countries were submitted to the 2022 art exhibition. Slovenian children were awarded a total of 6 medals and 27 honorable mentions. This makes Slovenia one of the most successful country of the 50th edition. Among the 52 Slovenian schools that participated in the anniversary year of the art exhibition, 14 schools were awarded.

In Ljubljana and its surroundings, pupils of the Gradec Primary School in Jevnica and the Roje Primary School in Domžale were both awarded with honorary mentions. In the capital city, the Vič Primary School was awarded with an honorary mention and The International Centre of Graphic Arts won a medal for collective work in the children's animation workshop on the theme of Andriena Šimotová's exhibition.

In Maribor, pupils from the primary schools of Franca Rozman Stanet and Janko Padežnik, as well as the Gustav Šilih Centre and the Tezno Kindergarten were awarded with honorary mentions. In the Primorska region, the Primary School Danila Lokarja in Ajdovščina was also awarded with honorable mentions. At the same school, Taj Kosmač from Dutovlje Primary School, who is now attending secondary school in Ajdovščina, was awarded with the Lidice Rose medal. He was already awarded several times in the International Children’s Art Exhibition Lidice in recent years for his photographic work.

Two honorable mentions also went to the Slovenian town of Velenje, to the Livada Primary School. In the Pomurje region, which is traditionally one of the most successful Slovenian regions in the Lidice art exhibition thanks to the excellent art teacher Mateja Gider, the Embassy staff handed over three Lidice Rose medals to the elementary school in Rogašovci, three honorable mentions and one medal for the school in Sveti Jurij ob Ščavnici. Pupils from the Kuzma Primary School were awarded with two honorary mentions.

Embassy representatives were warmly welcomed at all schools. On the occasion of the award ceremony, the schoolchildren organized collateral programmes in which they also present their musical and dancing talents. The winners get small gifts from the Czech Embassy in Ljubljana with the motifs of the Czech Republic and Czech culture, such as stuffed toys of the well-known animated character Mole, colouring books, crayons, a memory game and models of Škoda cars provided by the representatives of the car company in Slovenia.

Congratulations to all the winners and we look forward to next year!

The names of the winners are available here. You can see the award-winning exhibits here.