Art

The organizer and the right holder of the Golden Turtle Contest, exhibitions and all facilities and events related thereto is the MY EQUATOR Charity Social Support Fund.

Anyone may submit his/her works to participate in the competition, except for the competition organizers and the professional jury members. Authors from any countries can participate in the contest without restrictions. The official competition languages are Russian and English.

Decisions to award the Semi-Finalist, Finalist or Winner statuses to artwork shall be made by members of the Professional Jury and the Jury of Peers and may not be appealed.

Basic Concepts

Author (artist) shall mean a person who created the artwork and presents his/her work to the competition, has full copyrights and powers to decide on all organizational issues related to the participation of the work in the competition.

Work shall mean an artistic canvas created by various techniques of fine art, complying with the competition conditions and owned by the author. The work must be made by hand by the author from the beginning to the end, with the exclusion of any and all mechanical, digital or photomechanical processes.

• Completion of the artwork registration 31.03.2025
• Quarterfinal 01.04.2025 – 10.04.2025
• Semifinal 11.04.2025 – 20.04.2025
• Final 21.04.2025 – 30.04.2025
• Receiving originals 21.04.2025 – 10.05.2025
• Special categories 11.05.2025 – 30.09.2025
• Award Ceremony – Autumn 2025
• Exhibition in Moscow – Autumn 2025

The authors and the works shall be registered at the Golden Turtle Competition web-site in the respective section by a special form. 

Carrying out the Registration procedure by filling out a web form on the website http://www.wncontest.ru/, the Participant confirms that he has read and agrees to the terms of the Consent to the processing of personal data and has accepted the obligations indicated therein.

The author shall complete the registration procedure, then he/she is given a login and a password that are sent to the e-mail address specified in the course of registration.

Then, the author may begin to upload his/her own artwork, edit it, delete it, etc.

At the beginning of the registration, the author shall choose the category to present his/her work in.

Then, the author shall upload the works subject to the following technical requirements:

• The work shall be submitted in digital form by scanning or accurate re-photographing of man-made works;
• The image format shall be JPEG;
• The dimensions shall be 1,920 pixels horizontally for horizontal works; 1,920 pixels vertically for vertical works; the file size shall be no more than 3 MB.

To participate in the competition, the author shall provide the following information on his/her work:

• Author's name;
• The idea behind the project and depicted animals/nature objects containing no less than a 200 symbols.

• The author may submit to the competition no more than 20 works.
• One work may be presented in one category only.

In case a work becomes a semi-finalist, the work shall be assigned the semi-finalist status and the author shall be sent an email of the status assignment and a request to submit the large format of the file submitted to the competition, specially prepared for printing.

The files shall be submitted within 20 calendar days from the date of sending the respective letter.

The author shall provide the organizers with the files through a special form in his/her personal online account.

Requirements for the files to be provided:

1. Images prepared for printing that meet the following requirements:

• The format is JPEG or TIFF; the resolution is 300 dpi;
• The name of the file containing the image shall match the work name (e.g., “Penguins on ice”, not IMG_1234.jpg).

If it is not possible to prepare a quality image for the exhibition, the work shall not be displayed but shall remain a finalist.

The work originals shall be used by the organizers for various purposes, including, but not limited to:

• Printing of works required for the work of the jury;
• Preparing the final art album (each author whose work(s) is (are) presented in the album is entitled to receive One (1) author's copy of the album);
• Preparing exhibition copies of the artwork;
• Making an archive of the competition finalists, etc.

Reasons for Refusal

A work shall not be accepted to participate in the Golden Turtle Art Contest, if:

• The work does not meet the requirements specified in these Regulations;
• The work description includes foul language.

The competition organizers reserve the right not to accept any works that are not of a certain qualitative and technical level, without specifying a reason.

The author should be the right holder of the works they submit. 

Copying (exact reproduction) of photographs from the Internet and any other sources is prohibited. We are talking about direct copying of a third-party artistic concept, including characters, composition, color schemes, etc.

Members of the professional jury have the right not to recognize the result of artistic activity (copied photographic work) of the author as not having made a personal creative contribution to the creation of the work.

Members of the professional jury are not required to verify the works, but if the fact of copying is found, the author will be disqualified. By submitting a work to the competition, the author guarantees that his work does not violate the intellectual rights of third parties. The participant is fully responsible for his work, and in case of claims from third parties, he undertakes to settle them at his own expense.

The author can be either a single person or a group of people (studio, art school, etc.). By submitting their works to the Golden Turtle competition, the author agrees with the terms and conditions of the Lisence Agreement.

Exhibition copies that are printed at the expense of the Golden Turtle Competition organizers for displaying at the exhibition shall remain with the organizers and may be used by them for the statutory activities of the MY EQUATOR Charity Social Support Fund.

Winners in the adult categories

The winners of the 1st prize in the adult categories receive a cash prize in the equivalent of 75,000 Russian rubles, a glass trophy, a diploma, an album with all the finalists of the competition and prizes from partners.

Winners in the young categories

The winners of the 1st prize in the young categories receive a glass trophy, a diploma, an album with all the finalists of the competition and prizes from partners.

Stage 1 — Registration of works

Done by: the administration of the contest; online

Timeframe: from December 01, 2024 until March 31, 2025                     

Rules: Done based on the approved and published standards (see: http://www.wncontest.ru/en/art/rules/ ). All selected works receive the REGISTERED status (a.k.a. accepted into the competition). 

Deliverable: an image bank of registered artwork 

Stage 2 — Quarterfinal

Done by: the members of the professional jury; online 

Timeframe: April 1 – 10, 2025                     

Rules:

• A professional jury (5 to 9 people) is formed out of professional artists, winners and runner-ups of international contests
• Participation in the professional jury does not allow its members to participate in the competition as authors by submitting their artwork
• Members of the professional jury vote for works that, in their opinion, deserve to be in the final
• The number of votes from members of the professional jury is published in the personal accounts of the participants
• Works that receive at least one vote from members of the professional jury advance to the semifinal
• The selected works receive the SEMIFINALISTS status. All information received is published in the professional jury members’ private online accounts 
• The administration of the contest has the right to request photographs of the intermediate stages of the creation of a work as evidence of the exclusivity (originality) of the work

Stage 3 — Semifinal

Done by: the members of the professional jury; online 

Timeframe: April 11 – 20, 2025                     

Rules:

• The assessment is based on a 5-point scale and is carried out in the member’s private online accounts
• The highest and lowest scores for each work are not included in the final score
  
• The results of the assessment of each member of the professional jury are published in the member’s private online accounts of the contest semifinalists (the authors can only see the scores of the their own artwork)
• Based on the target number of finalists for exhibiting during the Festival (the decision is made annually by the organizers of the Festival), a "passing score" is established
• All works in each category that have received a "passing score" and above become the finalists
• The authors are notified of the status update; the works are published in the professional jury member’s private online accounts without the scores assigned during the previous stages of selection

Deliverable: the list of the finalists, published in the professional jury member’s private online accounts

Stage 4 — Final

Done by: by members of the professional jury; online

Timeframe: April 21 – 30, 2025                     

Rules:

• The winners are determined through the use of the double-rating system
• Each of the members of the professional jury forms their personal TOP-3 rating of the best works in each category (1st place = 3 points, 2nd place = 2 points, 2rd place = 1 point)
• The system automatically selects one work in each category that has scored the maximum number of points based on the results of the voting by members of the professional jury, and separately the work that has been in the TOP-3 best more often than others. If the work tops both ratings, it becomes the winner of the category. In the event that different works top these ratings, an additional vote is held by all members of the professional jury only between the works that claim victory
• The work receives a highly commended mark if it received 3 votes from members of the professional jury in categories where up to 10 works reached the final; if it received 2 votes from members of the professional jury in categories where 11 to 20 works reached the final; if it received 1 vote from members of the professional jury in categories where 21 or more works reached the final

Deliverable: a list of winners and works with a highle commended mark in each category published in the personal accounts of the members of the professional jury

Stage 5 — Special categories

Done by: the partners of the Festival, who have established special categories

Timeframe: May 11 – September 30, 2025                     

Rules:

• The partners of the Festival, who have opted for an appropriate sponsorship package, has the right to establish their own categories (upon approval from the organizers of the Festival)
• After the final selections are finished by the members of the professional jury, the partners of the Festival get access to all the finalists that did not become winners in the basic categories and pick the works they wish to award (the level of access depends on the category)

Deliverable: an additional list of winners in the special categories