First prize

Paolo in Pisa

Medium: Video
Description: The nature of our piece, Paolo in Pisa, is to teach our audience about Pisa in a fun, contemporary, and inventive way that utilize music, literature, visual art, and digital media.
For our project we used an Italian-English dictionary as our platform to place drawings of each building presented in the video, which our group traced. We then carved into the book in the shapes of each building to give the buildings depth. For finishing touches we painted around the buildings with watercolor, and put informational letters on the other side of the pages, to teach our audience a little bit about each building. For the final product we filmed it and used Paganini and Vivaldi for the music.

Author: Harmony Wicker and Lucy Nelligan
School: Asawa School of the Arts San Francisco
Teacher: Therese Folco

Vote: 4,2/5
Final comment: “The project’s originality and quality of execution made it the clear first choice of the Committee. Committee members expressed admiration for the work’s accurate representation of the monuments, its relevance to the specific theme, the physical merits of its execution and the success of its employment to create a compelling video. The creativity behind the artistic choices and the multi-media approach were universally admired.”

Second prize

Roman Fashion in the City

Medium: Sewing/Fashion
Description: For this project, I designed an outfit based off the Roman architecture and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This was all sewn, designed, and constructed by myself. For the skirt, I connected strips of fabric to represent columns. I did this because I was inspired by the heavy use of them in the Roman buildings and thought that they could also be the ‘support’ of the outfit. The undershirt has two points, or upside down triangles. I thought this would be interesting due to all of the geometric shapes and steeples seen in the architecture. The top is kind of a poncho that is draped and designed to flow with the outfit. This is because I have highly appreciated the aesthetic flow of each element to any building. I used a canvas fabric for the skirt, a silk for the top, and a light cotton fabric for the poncho.
I took a few photos of the outfit being modeled in Noe Valley San Francisco. I chose this area because it is the place where I live, therefore it is the San Francisco I see everyday and recognize the most.

Author: Kyra Monterrosa
School: Asawa School of the Arts San Francisco
Teacher: Therese Folco

Vote: 4/5
Final comment: “The Committee Members all expressed admiration for the originality of the concept behind the project and the quality of its execution. The accompanying text demonstrates a clear effort to evoke the forms of Pisan Romanesque architecture through contemporary fashion. More explicit references to the specific decorative language of the Pisan Romanesque would have insured an even higher evaluation by the Committee.”