Cultural Correspondent
The ability to imagine and make it into reality is what sets humans apart from the rest of life on the planet. It is our greatest strength. It had fuelled all our greatest achievements.
Driven by imagination and curiosity, man crossed vast oceans to discover new continents and civilisations. Humans even left the planet on July 16, 1969 in Apollo 11 to touch the Moon.
On July 20, 1969, man took a giant leap when American astronaut Neil Armstrong set his foot on the surface of the Moon. He was accompanied by Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins in man’s the voyage to the Moon.
Celebrating the 50 years of first Moon landing, Edward M Kennedy Centre has organised a children’s group art exhibition, along with other events, in Dhanmondi.
The exhibition which commenced on Saturday features selected paintings by school children, who have painted their imaginations in the seven colours of the rainbow.
The paintings portray sceneries like star lit space, Neil Armstrong landing on the Moon, satellites orbiting Earth, Bangladeshi astronauts exploring space and others.
The painting by Anahita Farshid Zaman, a student of South Breeze School, shows a Bangladeshi astronaut standing on the Moon holding the national flag of Bangladesh with the background showing lots of stars and the planet Earth at a distance.
The painting depicts the eight-year-old artist’s love for the country and patriotism. She dreams that Bangladesh will put a man on the Moon one day.
Rahma Binte Hossain, student of South Breeze School, has painted two astronauts floating in space.
Samia Rahman Labonno, student of Dhanmondi Kamrunnesa Government Girls’ High School, has painted the lunar landing on July 20, 1969. The painting shows an American astronaut placing the flag of the United States of America on the Moon while another is observing the situation beside a spacecraft on lunar surface.
Kausar Rahman Sajjad, a student of Dr Mahbubur Rahman Mollah College, has painted Bangladesh’s first artificial satellite Bangabandhu-1 orbiting Earth.
Besides the children’s art exhibition, the lunar landing celebration programme by EMK, which commenced on July 16 with observation of Moon through telescope, features science fiction writing competition, six-day Moon landing exhibition and space talk.
The best paintings will be awarded at the closing ceremony of the exhibition on July 23.
