Happy and exhilarating urban atmospheres are among the most important spiritual needs of citizens. Such atmospheres result partly from city cleanliness and architecture, and partly through the arrangement of group cultural events such as joyful rites and feasts.
Cultural-art festivals are among the joyful group events, and for that reason municipalities are classified as merely functional or cultural, depending on whether their operations are limited to city cleanliness or extend to cultural activities.
Tehran metropolis as the capital city of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the gathering center of believers in monotheistic religions has set itself a special task and method in the domain of arts and ideas, and it feels obligated to meet the lofty spiritual needs of its citizens by designing and implementing art events apart from its collaboration in other cultural programs.
The firts World Award of Monotheistic Religions has been designed on the assumption of the basic unity of religious faiths in the worship of God Almighty and the rejection of the demon of pride and oppression as well as the ideal of bringing about a moral and just society inspired by the teachings of prophets.
The World Award of Monotheistic Religions will be arranged in four categories of the visual arts, i.e., poster, painting, sculpture and photography. In the first year, the Award for the poster competition and exhibition has been designed to focus on the themes of pictorial representation of religious leaders’ lives, expression of the prophets’ teachings and on peace and reconciliation. The call to artists for submission of works started on the nativity of the prophet of Islam, Mohammad (S) and the exhibition will open on the nativity of Jesus Christ.