The lively folk costumes and melodies of the Sveti Juraj Culture & Arts Society of Desinić were followed by a welcome from CHF acting director Mirjana Ana Marija Piskulić to all the guests and performers, noting the many years of the competition featured in the exhibition.
This year’s first event at the CHF was opened by young women active in the fold of the Sveti Juraj Culture & Arts Society of Desinić. The lively folk costumes and melodies were followed by a welcome from Croatian Heritage Foundation acting director Mirjana Ana Marija Piskulić to all the guests and performers, noting the many years of the competition featured in the exhibition.
This CHF exhibition was declared open on the 20th of January by state secretary at the State Office for Croats Abroad Zvonko Milas, who expressed his gratitude to the initiators and participants. Joining Croatian ambassadors Štambuk, Vučak and Vidmarović, members of the CHF board of directors, representatives of the City of Zagreb and of the State Office for Croats Abroad and the press at the exhibition opening were Ivana Milina and Zrinka Bačić, president and vice president respectively of the Italo-Croat Mosaic of Rome Association and the member’s of the group’s management board Dragica Hadrović and Camillo Cirelli. Also on hand was the president of the One Music association of Molise and representative of the Molise region Croatians in the Croatian Government’s Advisory Council on Croats Abroad Antonella D’Antuono.
The God Bless, Croatia! – Greetings from the Native Land travelling international exhibition of photographs of children aged from 8 through 16 descended from Croatian emigrants or members of indigenous minority communities around the world is the fruit of a competition that saw some three hundred photographic submissions from Germany, Slovenia, Vojvodina, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Italy.
From December of 2015 to March of 2016 the competition drew children’s work on the topics of Croatian landscapes and the ethnographic, historical and cultural heritage of Croatia. It was organised by the Associazione Mosaico Italo Croato Roma (Italo-Croat Mosaic of Rome Association) under the auspices of the Croatian State Office for Croats Abroad, the Croatian Embassy in the Italian Republic, the Croatian Heritage Foundation, the City of Zagreb and the Ente Nazionale Croato per il Turismo Milano. The work to date has been crowned with this first exhibition in Zagreb.
Three prizes were awarded in this competition. The first prize went to Ana Francisković of Subotica, the second prize to Marija Vuković of Tavankut and the third to Giada De Rossi of Rome. Votes were cast for the most original concept in the competition, awarded to a photograph that made the short list of the panel of judges, on the public Internet site of the Associazione Mosaico Italo Croato Roma (www.mosaicoitalocroato.com). Votes were cast for Giulia Verdat, Victoria Clementina Pirani (Italy) and Josipa Stanić of Subotica.
The gathering at the CHF with the thirty shortlisted photographs and Italian delicacies brought by our guests from Rome was wonderful and left us all eagerly in anticipation of meeting again at a new exhibition.
Text by: Diana Šimurina-Šoufek; Photos by: Snježana Radoš








