(ZENIT News / Rome, 06.11.2024).- In the context of the Sports Jubilee of 2025, whose general motto is Hope, the Dicastery for Culture and Education has decided to celebrate this date with an international photography competition under the title “Sport in Motion.”
“Sport in Motion – What Is Essential Is Invisible to the Eyes” is the theme of the international photography competition, promoted by the Dicastery for Culture and Education in the framework of the Jubilee and directed by youths younger than 25. The competition includes five “categories”: “Sport and Hope”, “Sport and Family”, ”Sport and Ecology”, “Sport and Disability” and “Sport and Politics”.
Basis to Participate
Until April 30, any young person who wishes to participate can send unpublished photographs — not altered by using Artificial Intelligence and taken after 2020 — to the following e-mail address: sportinmotion@dce.va.
Participation is for free and open to all, including non-professionals. For additional information and the basis of the competition see the Webpage of the Dicastery for Culture and Education: www.dce.va.
The Winners Will Be Able to Meet Pope Francis
The 13 winning photographs (one for the theme Sport and Hope and three for each of the four categories) will be made known on Saturday, June 14, on the occasion of the Sports Jubilee.
The winners will meet with the Holy Father, visit the Vatican Museums, specifically from the perspective of the artistic experience and will see their photographs disseminated through the Vatican media, pointed out the Dicastery. .
Statements of the Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education
The objective of the competition is to join three words that are not always as close as they should be: sport-youth-art,” explained Cardinal José Tolentino Mendonça, Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education. The initiative is proposed as “an artistic platform — photography — through which young people can have hope of and in sport ”living it as a place of hope,” manifesting as well “its educational dimension, the unity between culture and education.”
Hence, the competition is a proposal to young people, particularly implicated in the practice, language and images of sport so that they “become producers of art and not only consumers of art” and “can tell the reality through their eyes, seeing what the adults are not always able to see, showing the ”essential that is invisible to the eyes” (The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry).”
Specifically inserted in the central theme of “hope,” the competition’s four “categories” (family, ecology, disability and politics) propose a complete and multifaceted vision of the sports experience. Woven with values embodied in human stories of redemption and fraternity, sacrifice and loyalty, team spirit and inclusion, as in an ever new Canticle of Creatures that is a proposal of peace, but also debilitated by “corruption, violence, doping and racism.”
Giovanni Zenoni: Godfather of the Competition
Giovani Zenoni, born in 2002, is a young sports and photography fan, who spends the greater part of his time behind a camera’s objective. Some of his shots were selected as sports photographs of the year in the categories of “Cycling” in 2022, “Aquatics” in 2023 and he received two special mentions in the category of “Winter Sports” in 2024. He was included among the 10 best “Youth Reporters Younger than 30” of the International Sports Press Association and won the “Promising Young Man“ prize of the National Union of Sports Veterans. He collaborates with various renown agencies and brands, and his photographs have already been published in the main national and international newspapers and magazines.
In addition to being the competition’s godfather, Giovanni Zenoni will form part of the jury of the same and will also take some photos on the occasion of the Sports Jubilee.
With information from the Dicastery for Culture and Education and Vatican Media
