If you follow our web regularly, probably you already know that some months ago the organizers of Illustrative and Young Illustration Award 2010 (YIA) invited us to participate as part of the jury of their award. The resolution of this award was announced on November 5 with a party that presented the winners, supposedly chosen by a jury. But... We have NOT voted anyone. So, what happened?



Here you will find a resume of the conversations and events that happened during the past month between Belio and Illustrative. Please, draw your own conclusions:

1. As they communicated us in their terms of participation, each member of the jury was supposed to vote between the 1st and 2nd of November through a web link that they would facilitate us. But, we never received any link or notification to proceed with said vote. And even more significant: before November 1 there was a list of nominees already published on their website.

2. On November 1, we contacted Illustrative to clarify the situation and correct any error before they will announce the election of an uneven prize. Their answers and explanations did not arrive until a week later after the winners had already been announced. Before that, we had already sent several e.mails in which we cordially asked to resolve the situation (at days 1st, 4th and 5th of November). We finally heard back from the director, Pascal Johanssen, only when on November 7 we warned them via e.mail that if we do not receive an explanations we would publish all those irregularities.

3. The response from Illustrative was: It was an human error, sorry, please understand. But at no time they proposed a solution to this problem, an irregular vote. They neither clarified how it is possible that the nominees were published before the alleged vote. Therefore, we kindly asked them to "assume responsibility" and offer a solution to such problem.

4. Days later their only answer still was "what's solution????!", But they neither offered a proposal, nor response to the irregularities. At November 12 and after further warnings to publish all these issues, their answer was: To delete the website of the jury. And send us the following message: "You have been deleted from the Jury's list. Feel free to publish what you want. If I read something in blogs that is affecting us, we will inform the people that you and Belio Magazine are blackmailing people."

5. Facing such threats and concealment of information (Are they going to deny that we were part of the jury?) we replied them with a copy of the webpage, before it was deleted. And we reiterated that our intention is to clarify this issue by peaceful means. This was never meant as an attack on Illustrative, but a request to find a solution to a problem.

6. Illustrative finally offered a solution: A free booth at the Illustrative exhibition for Belio and two hotel nights. But still no response to all the irregularities.

7. Our intention is NOT to gain personal profit from an "error" and that's why we finally proposed them a solution that regarding our opinion could satisfy both sides and avoid the loss of their supposed prestige:
- Let us see the documents with the jury's votes.
- Give us an answer to the question if and why the voting took place before the previously scheduled dates (1st and 2nd of November).
- Give us access to the same documents voted by the jury and let us select 5 artists who can be part of the exhibition.

8. From this point, time passes and the only answers are vague excuses, "the director is on vacation", "I have no access to such information", "I just have to finish some other projects and then I will work on that", etc. Therefore, after waiting for a whole month to their responses, we have decided not to insist again, to patiently wait for their response and to publish all this until the board of Illustrative and YIA 2010 will clarify this whole issue.


Why did we decide to publish all this?

We consider this issue a lack of respect towards our organization and towards all participants who have paid to submit their work in a competition endowed with a cash prize and which boasts certain international prestige, to develop with such a lack of professionalism and with so many mysterious irregularities. From our perspective they have abused our image to give credibility to these awards and therefore we feel the need to raise awareness within the community of artists and creators about the malfunction of Illustrative and Young Illustration Awards.

To whom it may concern:

For all those who have participated in Illustrative / YIA 2010 (after payment of 30 euros for) can find at the link below a PDF document with the full e.mails exchanged between Belio and Illustrative and a copy of the web where we appear as part of the jury, as evidence of what happened.

PDF DOCUMENTS (5 MB)