Hyderabad children showcase impression of Shiraz at painting exhibit “A Color from the East”
TEHRAN –(Iranart)- An exhibition opened in Shiraz on Tuesday displaying a collection of paintings by a group of schoolchildren in Hyderabad who have drawn their impressions of the southern Iranian city.
The Municipality of Shiraz is organizing the exhibition entitled “A Color from the East” with contributions from several other cultural institutes at the Namazi Station of the Shiraz Subway.
The idea to have children create paintings comes from a webinar on tourism organized last year by the Iranian consulate in the Indian city of Hyderabad, Hashem Mazaherizadeh, an advisor to the Shiraz mayor, said during the opening ceremony of the exhibit.
Consequently, due to the great enthusiasm the webinar generated for Shiraz, the Indian filmmaker Maheshwar Rao, who is also a social activist, decided to introduce the attractions of the city to the children of his homeland.
“Rao held meetings on Shiraz at several schools in Hyderabad, calling on students to draw their perceptions of the city in their paintings. The outcome was ‘A Color from the East’,” Mazaherizadeh said.
The exhibition hanging 40 paintings selected from submissions from 200 schoolchildren will run until July 6.
Saeidreza Kamrani, the director of the Shiraz branch of the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, also attended the opening ceremony of the exhibition.
“Undoubtedly, art has had an irreplaceable role in conveying a message, and now we see that children from India have produced amazing paintings of Shiraz so that we as visitors suppose that they have been citizens of Shiraz,” he said.
Mazaherizadeh also said that children have a special place in Shiraz Municipality’s policy for international cooperation.
He announced a plan by the Shiraz Municipality to organize an international children’s painting event with cities around the world that have signed twin city agreements with Shiraz, which houses numerous cultural heritage sites, including Persepolis and Pasargadae.
The first edition of this joint children’s art project will be organized with Florence, the capital of Italy’s Tuscany region, which is home to many masterpieces of Renaissance art and architecture.
source: Tehran Times