Anjali Chandrashekar, a 22-year-old Indian artist is among the three winners of a UN poster competition aimed at raising awareness about nuclear disarmament, with her poster of a peace dove slicing through a nuclear weapon garnering appreciation from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Anjali, a New York-based designer and “artivist“, won the third prize in UN Poster for Peace contest presented by the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (ODA) to raise awareness of the need for nuclear disarmament. Titled ‘Cutting Barriers through Peace’, the poster features a peace dove slicing through a nuclear weapon.

She received her third-prize certificate from Ban at an award ceremony held here on May 3. Apart from the three winners, nine honorable mentions were chosen from among more than 4,100 entries representing 123 countries. The young artist was only 10 when she founded ‘Picture It’, a non-governmental organisation that uses imagery to raise awareness and funds for various health, humanitarian and environmental causes.

The first prize went to 38-year-old Ivan Ciro Palomino Huamani from Peru for his ‘Spinning Peace’, which features a nuclear weapon being unraveled into string which is then used to fly kites and balloons, and to jump rope. Second place winner, 15-year-old Michelle Li, named her poster ‘Peace in our Hands’, which features a shadow puppet of a peace dove above a broken nuclear weapon.