Arakawa (MC) ───── Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Let’s begin the special symposium for the International Exhibition of Glass Kanazawa 2016. I am Mr Arakawa, Deputy Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the exhibition and Managing Director of the Design Center Ishikawa. We would like to announce the results of the Final Assessment, and the jurors of the Final Assessment Panel will make comments on the prize winners.
I would like to introduce all the jurors: Atsushi Takeda, Jun Fujita, Bodil Busk Laursen from Denmark, Yan Zoritchak from France, and William Douglas Carlson from the US. We would like to thank all the jurors for traveling from their home countries to Ishikawa and conducting the difficult task of selecting the prize winners out of a very competitive field. Ms Yoshiko Hayakawa will interpret.

Arakawa (MC) ───── I would like to briefly explain the procedure of the exhibition. Please have a look at the results of the Final Assessment in the material we handed out to each of you. We received 374 entries from 40 nations and regions. The Preliminary Assessment was held on April 15th 2016 by means of images. The members of the Preliminary Assessment Panel included: Atsushi Takeda, art critic, Kenji Kuze, pottery artist and former president of Kanazawa College of Art, Etsuko Nishi, glass artist, and Akiyo Sakuma, a curator of Koganezaki Crystal Park Glass Museum. At the Preliminary Assessment, the panel members conducted a thorough review of each applicant’s image. After their thoughtful consideration and active discussion, 77 works submitted from 21 nations and regions were selected. For the Final Assessment, 73 works from 21 nations and regions were sent to the Executive Committee. At the Final Assessment held yesterday, all the prize winners were selected by the jurors. It was an incredibly difficult process, however, all the jurors finally agreed on the results of their assessment. The Grand Prize winner and the Gold Prize winner are displayed in the center of this room. The rest of the results are on the list of all the prize winners.
We would now like to begin the Special Symposium. Professor Atsushi Takeda will be today’s moderator. He played the role of the head juror at both assessments. He will briefly report on how the Preliminary Assessment was carried out. Then we would like all the panelists and jurors, to make comments on each prize winner. Lastly, each panelist will review the Final Assessment and give the audience their advice and expectations for the younger generation.

Takeda ───── Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The Final Assessment took place yesterday, and all the prize winners were selected. We will now announce the results of the assessment and have a special symposium.
The Preliminary Assessment was based on images. In recent years, the images have become clearer, which made our assessment easier, unlike in the exhibition’s early years when we would try to overcome our difficulty in looking at blurry slides in the dark, by rubbing the strain from our eyes. However, we know well that the images are quite different from the actual works. We intended to assess the works without being deceived by the effects of the images. We selected more than 70 works by exchanging honest opinions amongst ourselves.
At the Final Assessment held yesterday, only 72* works were assessed by five jurors, because one work arrived broken and another had not arrived. The way of assessment has been almost the same at each exhibition. First, each juror had 8 slips of paper and put it on the works the juror thought were excellent, while looking at all the works as a whole. Such voting was performed only once, unlike in previous final assessments, by following all the jurors’ opinions. After voting, the jurors exchanged their honest ideas and opinions in front of the work they focused on each time. In this way, they came to a consensus and decided on all the prize winners including the Grand Prize, Gold Prize, Silver Prizes, Honorable Mentions and Jurors’ Prizes. That is why we have already decided who is going to discuss which prize winners.
The Grand Prize winner and the Gold Prize winner are displayed in front of you. Both works are laid down because they are quite unstable. At the actual exhibition, those two works will be displayed more firmly. I am sorry that today, the works can only be temporarily stood with the help of staff members. Please enjoy the jurors’ comments with the images of the rest of the prize winners on the screen.