Arakawa (MC) ───── Good morning ladies and gentlemen. We would like to begin the special symposium for the International Exhibition of Glass kanazawa 2013. I am Mr Arakawa,the Deputy Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the exhibition and Managing Director of the Design Center Ishikawa. We will discuss the result of the Final Assessment and members of the Final Assessment Panel will make comments on the prize winners.

I would like to introduce all the jurors: Atsushi Takeda, Naoto Yokoyama, Bodil Busk Laursen from Denmark, and William Douglas Carlson from the US. I would like to thank the jury members for traveling from their home countries to Ishikawa and conducting the difficult task of selecting the prize winners from a very competitive field. Ms Yoshiko Hayakawa will interpret the panel discussion.

Arakawa (MC) ───── I would like to briefly discuss the procedure of the exhibition. We received 332 entries from 34 nations and regions. The Preliminary Assessment was held on April 24th 2013 by a jury of panelists. The panel members included: Atsushi Takeda, an art critic, Jun Fujita, a glass artist, Yoriko Mizuta, Dupty Director of the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, and Ryoichi Komatsu, Professor Emeritus at the Kanazawa College of Art. In the Preliminary Assessment, panel members conducted a thorough review of each applicant’s slide. After thoughtful consideration and thorough discussion of each applicant’s work, 70 works from 17 nations were selected. For the Final Assessment, 69 works from 17 nations were sent to the Executive Office. Considering one broken work, we decided to judge 68 works to select the prize winners.

At the Final Assessment jury members selected the prize winners. This was an incredibly difficult process, however, after much deliberation they finally forced their results. The Grand Prize winner, “Shape of Emotion” by KANG Min Haeng (Korea) and the Gold Prize winner, “A Flowery Shine” by TSUKADA Midori (Japan) are displayed in the center of the room. The rest of the results are on the list of all the prize winners. We would now like to begin the symposium. Professor Atsushi Takeda will be today’s moderator. He will briefly discuss the Preliminary Assessment. Then we would like all the panelists make some comments on each prize winner. Lastly, each panelist will review the Final Assessment and give the audience some advice and opinions.