Autumn activates everyone, and there are more events. The “In My Homeland” project has already announced a new contest edition, and while the participants are preparing and the organisers are waiting for the creative works, news about the project’s events in different countries is coming from our partners.

Cooperation between art schools in Belarus and Russia

Thanks to the contacts found within the In My Homeland project, it is often possible to establish a stable friendship bridge between the art schools of Belarus and Russia.

Two Belarusian schools, the Vitebsk Children's Art School and the Soligorsk Children's Art School, are now official partners of the Boarding College Art Center for Gifted Children of the North (Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia).

On October 1 in Minsk during the International Industrial Exhibition "INNOPROM. Belarus" Cooperation Agreements were signed. The director of the boarding college was sent to Minsk specifically for this purpose as part of an official delegation. Now it will be easier for the schools to cooperate and implement joint projects.

The “Dialogue of Cultures” exhibition in Kirovsk (Russia)

Starting from October 8, the “Dialogue of Cultures. Printed Graphics of the Children’s International Contest “In My Homeland” exhibition is running at the Apatit Museum and Exhibition Center. This is a retrospective of children’s works from different years — from 2006 to the present day. Russia, India, Thailand, Poland, Serbia, Latvia… Different countries, different techniques — linocut, etching, cardboard engraving, monotype. Printed graphics is a strict art that requires precise lines and clarity of concept. It is all the more surprising that this complex technique is so widely and boldly mastered by children.

During the preparation of the exhibition, a kind of “meeting” took place between one of the authors and her work. Preparing annotations organiser Ksenia Kolobova contacted the author from Thailand, Pitchapa Wangprasertkul, whose work received a Diploma of the exhibition participant in 2010. It turned out that this girl had become a professional artist and was very glad that her children's works were still of interest and were still on display.

A special joy for the organisers of the exhibition was that the exhibition also featured linocuts by Sofia Chaliapkina, a student of the A. S. Rozanov Children's Art School from Kirov.

The exhibition runs until November 8 on the third floor of the Apatit International Exhibition Center. Enter is free, 0+

Presentation and exhibition of the “In My Homeland” project in Gansu Province (China)

In July, the second meeting with Chinese artist‑educators was held at the “Happy Art” art school in the city of Lanzhou (China). It was dedicated to the “In My Homeland” project and the results of the 21st International Art Contest. Like the first meeting, this one was conducted by artist‑educators Lei Lei, Du Yamin and Evgenia Kosterina, who this year were members of the competition’s supervisory board. They talked about the work of the jury, presented the competition results and shared their personal impressions. Of course, there was particular interest in the drawings — the works of the conetst winners — as well as in the selection made by individual members of the jury and the supervisory board. One of the presenters, Evgenia Kosterina, explained the motives behind the selection of certain works, taking into account the differences between Eastern and Western artistic traditions.

During the meeting, the teachers also had the opportunity to make and comment on their choices from among the contest works brought by the members of the supervisory board as part of a methodological folder.

Ahead of the 22nd International Art Contest “In My Homeland” the number of interested teachers is growing, so it is planned to hold similar meetings in the future.

The exhibition of the “Golden Fund” of drawings from the International Art Contest “In My Homeland” was held in Lanzhou, Gansu Province (China), from June 26 to July 10, 2026.

According to the director of the Zhangye Lu State Junior School, the exhibition was held as part of the “One Belt, One Road” state program. Lanzhou is an ancient city on the Great Silk Road, where the cultures of different peoples have always intersected. This time, students at Zhangye Lu School got to know the lives of children from Belarus, Russia, Uzbekistan, Slovenia, and Poland through drawings. Art develops and nurtures a harmonious personality, and this is very important for primary school children.

As part of the exhibition’s opening, artist and teacher Evgenia Kosterina gave a tour of the exhibition.

We hope this exhibition will be the beginning of a great journey of the contest’s “Golden Fund” across China.

The “Golden Fund” of the contest in the studio’s work

At the end of September, a folder containing copies of particular works from the “Golden Fund” of the International Art Contest “In My Homeland” was handed over to the Yellow Room Art Studio in Smolevichi. The studio’s head and teacher, Natalya Kaminskaya, immediately incorporated these drawings into her work. Now, during classes, the children discuss the subjects, genres, colors, and compositions not only of famous artists but also of their peers.