Buon Compleanno Italia! Celebrating Italy's 150th Birthday

The inaugural ‘Why Italian’ celebration was held at the ANU today, as part of World Italian Language Week, designated by the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs to promote the Italian Language throughout the world, to celebrate 150 years of Italian Unification. A video conference, hosted by the ANU and the Embassy of Italy in Canberra, connected Italian students, academics and dignitaries in universities, colleges and schools across the country in discussion and debates for the first time. The event has paved the way for further collaboration in Italian studies and it is hoped that a new Australian National Italian Language Commission will now be established.

As part of the event the “Premio Italia” awards were announced. The awards, which this year were focused on the theme of The Italian Risorgimento, were based on a competition on essays and works of art submitted by undergraduate and postgraduate students.

A number of ANU students received Premio Italia prizes in the art category, including Allison Chaplin (first prize), Josh Wodak (second prize) and Roman Stachurski (third prize). In the library category ANU student Dominie Sophia Dessaix was awarded the third prize.

To find out more about the 2012 Premio Italia awards visit the School of Languages website.