About The Sheikha Manal Young Artist Award
Under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, President of UAE Gender Balance Council, President of Dubai Women Establishment, and wife of His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs UAE.
The Sheikha Manal Young Artist Award supports, was first launched in 2006, as an annual visual arts competition which aims to encourage, recognize and promote emerging artists from the UAE and is especially popular amongst university students majoring in Art, Design and Multimedia.
Open to all UAE residents, male and female, between the ages of 18 to 30 years old, one major criterion for the award is that the artist should not have had an independent solo exhibition previously.
The competition is divided into five categories inclusive of the new Architecture category: Fine Art, Photography, Multimedia, Design and Architecture. The prize value, which totals to AED 570,000, are distributed to the 1st Place winner- AED 50,000, 2nd Place winner- AED 30,000 and 3rd Place winner -AED 20,000 respectively of the five competition categories (Fine Arts, Photography, Multimedia, Design and Architecture) along with a bigger cash prize of AED12,000 for the winner of the ‘People’s Choice Award’, and the #ClickYAA Photography Competition category with AED 10,000, AED 5,000 and AED 3,000 cash prize for winner, runner up and second runner up, respectively. #ClickYAA is unlike any of the other competition categories as it welcome entrants of all ages.
In addition individual winners, group submission entry winner will be selected across all the categories and will receive an award prize of AED 40,000.The award is juried by a distinguished panel of industry professionals and senior practicing artists. All entries are submitted online and 50 artworks are shortlisted for the exhibition and final judging process followed by the declaration of the winners at the Gala Award Night ceremony.
This year, we are widening the eligibility for submissions by allowing group or collaborative works to enter the Award.
Today, The Sheikha Manal Young Artist Award has emerged as UAE’s most important award competition for young emerging artists. www.youngartistaward.ae