The Contest of SEGNI festival
Symbol Animal and contest
Each edtion of the SEGNI Festival has its symbolic animal and a testimonial, an artist who draws the animal. Over the past editions, Dario Moretti’s drawings in the first 6 years have been followed by the work of Dario Fo, Altan, Alessandro Bergonzoni, Giorgia, Licia Colò, Alessandro Sanna, Virgilio Sieni, Vinicio Capossela, Arturo Brachetti, even Giulio Romano up to the scientist Barbara Mazzolai. Since 2023 this job has been given to our audience: young people can apply its own graphic design and the jury chooses the one!
The symbolic animal is the perfect vehicle for conveying content and themes that stimulate creativity and reflection in young audiences. It comes with a Bibliography offering ideas for further reading on the festival topics. More importantly, the symbol animal is connected to a historic Contest where everybody – children, teenagers, families, schools of all kinds and levels – can participate by reinterpreting the image of the animal proposed by the testimonial artist through various artistic or narrative techniques.
The participants’ creations are one of the highlights of the path leading up to the Festival, a way to leave your own mark and be 100% involved.
2026: The Year of the Cow!
A familiar figure recognisable to people of all ages, capable of speaking to girls, boys, teenagers and adults through shared images, stories and meanings.
The COW has been part of human life for millennia. It is linked to nourishment, the land, work, care, landscapes, culture and art. It carries with it an ancient and tangible history, made up of closeness, mutual dependence and shared resources. Around the COW, nature and culture, biology and memory, territory and community come together. Just as in the festival, here too many elements coexist and transform together: living beings, environments, knowledge, gestures, languages. A community in relationship, which at SEGNI we call a cultural ecosystem.
Find out more about this year’s totemic animal by reading the description.
From a special twinning partnership
The image of the COW, the 2026 Symbolic Animal of the SEGNI New Generations Festival, was created by the artist KAVIIIK and forms part of the visual identity of Au Bonheur des Mômes, the French festival in Le Grand-Bornand.
This choice forms part of the ongoing partnership between SEGNI and the French festival, beginning with the tribute that Segni d’infanzia pays to Alain Benzoni, founder of Au Bonheur des Mômes. It was in Le Grand-Bornand, during the 2005 edition of the festival — the same year as the chosen image — that Segni d’infanzia found the impetus and inspiration to launch the Mantua festival, now known as the SEGNI New Generations Festival.
Choosing KAVIIIK’s COW means acknowledging those roots and keeping them alive through a bond forged by memory, exchange and transmission between two festivals that share a focus on the younger generation, art and cultural participation.
The Contest that will change you!
New for 2026: the ‘Colour (and Tell the Story of) the Symbolic Animal’ competition is getting a makeover.
The Artistic Director is inviting everyone to help design this special competition linked to the Symbolic Animal.
Starting with the choice of the COW as the 2026 Symbolic Animal, we wish to open a dialogue with everyone who wants to imagine a new form of the ‘Colour and Tell the Story of the Symbolic Animal’ competition together: a non-competitive, accessible initiative capable of fostering a sense of community among children, schools, families and the local area.
The questions that follow are not intended as a questionnaire, but as a framework to gather needs, further questions, insights and concrete possibilities that confirm the Symbolic Animal and also the cultural offering of the SEGNI Festival as an accessible and useful opportunity for both schools and families.
- How can we make the competition a non-competitive initiative?
- What form of final presentation could be sustainable and foster a sense of community?
- Which forms of expression are most accessible and meaningful for your pupils’ age group?
- What materials or tools could practically help teachers and educators to develop a programme with SEGNI / Symbolic Animal?
- How can we make the Symbolic Animal programme at the Festival – which will take place from 12 to 22 November 2026 – a useful tool to complement your teaching activities?
Please send your thoughts on these questions to the staff:
Cristina Cazzola – Monica Colella – Elisabetta Girolami
ufficioscuole@segnidinfanzia.org | 0376 752417 (landline) | +39 375 638 2711 (WhatsApp)
How can you enter?
All ages can participate:
- with classmates
- alone, by involving the family or by getting together with friends to share ideas and each produce a work to enter the competition.
What kind of works can be submitted? Artistic (pictorial or plastic), narrative (short stories, poems) or multimedia (podcasts, videos): there are no limits to creativity!
What you can win
The following section refers to the 2025 edition.
Each year Segni together with its partners and sponsors provides prizes for the first three winners of the two current categories:
- school category: in which schools of all grades in the province of Mantua participate;
- family category: in which Segni also invites everyone to participate, only adults as well.
FOR SCHOOLS! For the 1st classified: a special event to be realised in class or at school with our Artistic Director.
For the 2nd and 3rd prize-winners Segni d’infanzia will bring to classes a precious selection of books from the Bibliography of the Octopus, realised by Simonetta Bitasi – Lettore Ambulante, Maria Cappelletti – Baratta Library coordinator and Sara Calciolari – Mantova Library Network coordinator and dedicated staff of the Children’s and Young People’s Room.
FOR FAMILIES! A wonderful stay on the Giglio Island (ITALY) and boat trips in the Tuscan Archipelago for the top 3 winners in the Families category! Thanks to MAREGIGLIO
Terms and Conditions
The competition is currently being developed; visit the ‘Team-based Competition’ section to help shape the new competition.
In the meantime, from 9 June, you can find inspiration in the Cow’s Bibliography! Visit the dedicated section for more information.
