“Gratitude to my teachers for their recognition of my #animation content in bringing Venezuela's 'The Mijares' to a wider audience,” says Wanying Lolu (Venezuela), an alumna from the Academy of Arts & Design, honored with the Outstanding Graduation #Design Award for her animation inspired by her homeland.

Motivated by the fading legacy of Venezuela's 'Dancing Devils of Corpus Christi,' Wanying devoted her graduation project to crafting a fictional story of the Mijares family, the unofficial family inheritors. Through her animation, she tries to convey and symbolize the epitome of inheritors in the digital age, singing an elegy and evoking the declining Latin American culture.

Incorporating traditional music, dance, and costume patterns, Wanying successfully demonstrated the crucial elements of this intangible heritage. Over three years of dedicated work, she has brought ‘Dancing Devils’, a lesser-known intangible cultural heritage, into the international spotlight, reaching a broader audience.