Kosice, August 20th 2008 - Twenty three artists, students and teachers from six colleges today begin the international workshop Metal Inspirations 2008 with a tour of U. S. Steel Kosice operations. This is being co-organized for the 7th year running by the Department of Design at the Faculty of Arts, Technical University in Kosice together with the steel company and the Vocational School for Metallurgy in Kosice-Saca. The task of the designers this year will be to create a metal model of a billboard for the city of Kosice with the subtitle Welcome to Kosice, as well as a small metal object expressing the effort to sustain a safe and healthy environment. The exhibition of created artworks will be opened on August 28 at the Slovak Technical Museum on Hlavna Street and the exhibition is due to last till October 5. Some works will also be on show to visitors in the U. S. Steel Kosice stand at the International Mechanical Engineering Fair in Brno in September.

The young artists will be working in the workshops at the Vocational School in Saca every day except Sunday. Guided by their teachers and craftsmen of practical subjects, they will be reshaping metal scrap into original artworks with decorative and practical character. For many of them this is a new experience of working with metal, using special techniques and equipment. The workshop participants always appreciate the opportunity to confront their designs in an international creative environment involving artists from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany and Great Britain.

This project of partnership between an industrial company and educational institutions supports the candidacy of the city of Kosice for the European Capital of Culture in 2013 at the same time.

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Further information:

Jan Baca
spokesman
U. S. Steel Kosice, s.r.o.
Tel.: +421 55 673 4476
Fax: +421 55 673 0330