Jointly organised by theGWP CEE and the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River, this popular competition has run in 14 countries in the Danube river basin since 2004. The ambitious contest encourages children to visit their local rivers and create artworks reflecting what the Danube means to them. In 2016 the competition was not organized at international level, however a few coutnries from the Danube river basin – Slovenia, Hungary and Romania kept the tradition and decided to conduct it at national level.
GWP Slovenia paid a beautiful tribute to the Danube Art Master competition by creating an exhibition entitled "Becoming a Danube Artist through the years 2004-2015". The panels with photos of the artworks through these 11 years showed the variety and endless creativity of the young generation. The exhibition was supported by the Slovenian Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning and GWP CEE.
It was first presented to the members of the ICPDR PP EG meeting in Ljubljana on 22 Aprii 2016 and than from 23 to 22 May 2016 in Castle Snežnik. In this short period it was visited by approximately 2000 guests, including organized schools visits, experts, tourists from Slovenia and abroad.
Later, from 9 September till 22 October the exhibition was moved to the Park Škocjan Caves, UNESCO’s natural and cultural world heritage site, where the visitors were able to enjoy it. At this location the final award ceremony for the young Danube artists was held on 9 September. The ceremony was organized by GWP Slovenia in collaboration and co-financed by the Ministry of Environment and Park Škocjan Caves. The particpants enjoyed an exciting program with many different art and water activities.
On the iniciative of ICPDR Chair the exhibition was presented at the 14th Standing Working Group Meeting of ICPDR. The value of DAM competition was recognized and at the 19th ICPDR Ordinary Meeting the decision was taken to relaunch the competition in 2017 and beyond.