Entries are now open for the Young Creative Awards 2016.

The Nottingham Young Creative Awards 2016 give young people the chance to show off their creative work, network with future employers and gain valuable industry experience and mentoring.

The theme this year is “Goals and Dreams”. Judges want young people, aged 13 to 24 who live, study or work in Nottingham to let their imaginations flow and enter pieces of work that reflect their aspirations for themselves and Nottingham.

The overall winner across all the categories will be named as the Young Creative of the Year 2016 and will win an additional cash prize, plus an opportunity for work experience, or mentoring from experts in their creative area.

Nigel Cooke, Chair of the Young Creative Awards, said: “Nottingham’s next generation is brimming with stunning talent, imagination, creativity and hard work. These young people make the future bright for Nottingham. The awards showcase the talent and innovation of young people in the city, and gives them recognition and praise they so rightly deserve.

“This event is so important to young creative people in Nottingham because it provides them with a platform to showcase their work and meet other people in the industry too. This is vital in helping them take their first steps into a future career.”

“In this year’s competition, we want people to tell us what drives them, what they dream of becoming or doing, what are their hopes and aspirations for the future.”

The awards were introduced in 2009 to encourage and inspire young creative talent in Nottingham and to help young people take the next step in developing their potential.

 Entries can be anything from a poem, a photograph, an article of clothing, a song, a painting, a design, a film, a short story or whatever you dream of! 

The categories are:

  • Architecture and Design
  • Animation
  • Digital Media
  • Creative Writing
  • Dance
  • Fashion and Textile
  • Film
  • Graphic Design
  • Music
  • Photography
  • Visual Arts

The closing date for entries is 21 March 2016, with the awards ceremony taking place at the Nottingham Playhouse on 18th May 2016.

Last year’s winner, for the theme ‘Made in Nottingham’ was 18-year-old Jamal Sterrett, a student at New College Nottingham

Along with Young Creative of the Year, Jamal won in the Graphic Design 16-18 year old category and also took the top spot in the Dance category for the same age group.

Jamal created a poster with the intention of showing other cities how amazing Nottingham is in all types of creativity. The poster represented a film ‘Made in Nottingham’.

 

 To find out more visit www.youngcreativeawards.org

The event is sponsored by Central College Nottingham, Confetti, Dance4, Maber, Michon, New College Nottingham, Nottingham City of Football, Nottingham CityCare Partnership, Nottingham Music Hub, Nottingham Trent University, One Nottingham Skeleton Productions, and Speedo.

YCA on social media, Twitter – @nottinghamyca

Qualification Criteria

You must be between the ages of 13 and 24 at the closing date of 21 March 2016. There are 3 age bands – each will be judged in its age range.

  • 13 – 15 years old
  • 16 – 18 years old
  • 19 – 24 years old

You may enter as an individual, as a group, as a class/study group or club.

In each age group and category the judging panels will look for a winner and highly commended entries.

The overall winner across all the categories will be named as the Young Creative of the Year 2016 and will win an additional cash prize, plus an opportunity for work experience, or mentoring from experts in their creative area.

The competition is open to anyone who lives, studies or works in Nottingham.  The specification and criteria for each of the categories is available on the Young Creative Awards website.

All entrants will be invited to a free awards ceremony on Wednesday 18th May at the Nottingham Playhouse, where the entries will be showcased and celebrated.

GOALS AND DREAMS

Goals and Dreams reflect our city.  Nottingham has always had great ambition, as a city we are proud of our achievements, such as winning the titles of City of Football and Home of Sport.  Winning and hosting great sporting events, bringing people from across the world to our region. So in our City of Football your goal could be around creatively representing the “beautiful game”, or about succeeding in football. The Nottingham City of Football Board is keen to see your entries, as they are looking for new and imaginative ways of marketing the game. City of Football is about finding new markets, new players and new ways of playing. Your entry may encourage any of these.

There are also many other ways in which you could connect or interpret the Young Creative Awards 2016 “Goals and Dreams”.

We drive forward in music and are one of the leading lights in new, raw talent in the world, with new artists regularly achieving great success in the entertainment business.

We are fashion crazy and have a host of young independent fashion houses in the city, with an underground movement of young fashion designers who may have come from our wonderful Universities and Colleges to achieve their goals.

Our heritage is very important to us.  Nottingham is a city with an amazing history.

Being innovative and forward-thinking in our design and architecture stands us out from the crowd. We have a rich vein of talent in the visual arts sector, and we have established up-and-coming film makers, photographers and artists in the city.

We love to dance and to perform, with a wealth of aspiring, inspirational young people who have excelled in the arts.

We are a city of technology, science and inventions and ambition.