Winners of the Culture Online International Award 2021 were announced on November 15. Award ceremony where the best digital projects in the field of culture were announced was held online.

Culture Online Award is held for the second year in a row and is aimed at encouraging organizations executing their cultural projects online or with the use of digital technologies. This contributes to the development of cultural sphere, society and humanistic environment thus creating the new models of culture’s disclosure and accessibility to public. The Award was organized in 2021 by the Russian Culture Fund.

“There have always been many creative people in the world – innovators who have embodied the most daring ideas. The pandemic has pushed the culture itself and cultural organizations in particular to digitalize more rapidly. New technologies are not only a tribute to the new reality, but an effective way to expand the audience of cultural projects, to make culture more accessible to everyone, to show common things from an unusual angle and to combine the most diverse spheres of art into the innovative projects. Growing number of the Award applications with a number of foreign and international projects nominated shows that such concept is demanded, that the cultural industry needs it as a way to single out all the best and to share it in digital cultural environment,” said the Director General of the Russian Culture Fund All-Russian Public and State Organization Elena Yuryevna Golovnina.

The award has expanded its borders and rose to international scale this year. Total of 452 projects from more than 20 countries and 50 regions of Russia was submitted for the competition. In 2021, the award was conferred to the best online cultural projects to be implemented starting from November 1, 2020.

The Expert Board consisting of cultural figures, media representatives and professionals in strategic communications, were evaluating projects in 7 nominations.

The following projects have became the winners of the Award:

Best Online Project
First place: Marathon of Youth Orchestras Of the World, organizer: Russian Concert Agency LLC;
Second place: International Online Theatre Festival, organizer: TheTheatreTimes.com (USA);
Third place: Hermitage Online Project, organizer: The State Hermitage Museum.

Best Educational Project
My Tretyakov Gallery, organizer: State Tretyakov Gallery All-Russian Museum Association.

Cultural Gamification
Mobile Art Theater, organizer: History of the Future Creative Studio.

Digital Transformation: From Offline to Online
Online 20th ASSITEJ World Congress on Theatre for Children, organizer: International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People (Denmark).

Best SMM Campaign
Blog About Art, Culture and Self-Development by Anastasia Konovalova;
Hot Culture Project.

Best IT Solution In the Cultural Sphere
[AR]T Museum, organizer: Cuseum (USA).

Best Collaboration
“Slepok” (Plaster Cast) film, organizer: Context International Festival. Diana Vishneva in cooperation with the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin Federal State Educational Institution of Culture and Aksenov Family Foundation.

Special Prize by the Russian Culture Fund
The Cathedral: Hidden Signs And Secret Doors. VR-Tour, organizer: The Kaliningrad Cathedral State Autonomous Organization of Kaliningrad Region (Kaliningrad).

The list of finalists of the Culture Online Award 2021 was announced on November 12.