Wojciech Siudmak is the honorary citizen of Wieluń, Poland, and of Ozoir-la-Ferrière and Saint-Thibault-des-Vignes, France. The artist has received numerous awards, distinctions and accolades, including the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland in Paris (1999), the Grand Gold Medal of Art-Sciences-Lettres in Paris (Grande Médaille d’Or avec plaquette d’Honneur) (2013) or the Gold Hippolytus (2014) and the gold Oxygenus award (2015) in Poznań. The Wojtek Siudmak Graphic Art Award was founded in France in 2006.
“Eternal Love” monument
The artist initiated the Siudmak Arkana XXI Foundation and the World Peace Project, the latter having the Eternal Love monument as its symbol — a 4.5 m tall brass sculpture unveiled in Wieluń on 31 August 2013. The artist used the statue to convey a message of peace, which remains clear regardless of the time, place, nationality or religion due to the universal nature of art.
“Eternal Love” Peace Award.
Eternal Love is a unique gesture of understanding and tolerance addressed to the world. Pursuing peace had never been considered from this perspective and had never taken such a form or had such deep justification. The fact that the World Peace Project is implemented under the auspices of the Polish UNESCO Committee, the Eternal Love sculpture and the whole undertaking in general has a special meaning to the artist as he was born in a town where the nightmare of World War II started with a horrifying genocide. Wieluń was the first witness and victim of the Nazi crimes. The project is a deeply humanistic commitment to all those harmed by and still suffering because of the war. The mission of the World Peace Project is to communicate and develop the idea of harmony, tolerance and understanding based on intellectual, artistic and scientific values. The project enters the world with a universal and positive message in the most beautiful of forms: art and intellect. Being tied to works of art from other cities, the message of the World Peace Project will give birth to dialogue between the cultures of the third millennium. Art is a special supporter of these ideas.
In 2012, the artist founded the “Eternal Love” Peace Award.