A grand opening ceremony for Mr. Luo Hong’s photographic exhibition was held on June 14th in Cambridge University’s Sedgwick Museum. This exhibition of Luo Hong, a famous photographer and environmentalist in China, was titled ‘Ode to the Earth’ and featured two themes: African wildlife and western Chinese landscapes.
The opening ceremony started at 6 pm. Over 100 people attended the ceremony, including students and faculty of Cambridge University, senior officers from the UNEP and news reporters. The director of Sedywick museum, Dr. David Norman made a speech first, followed by Prof. Jon Hutton, director of UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Mr. Jun Kong, President of Cambridge Eastern Education and Development Society (CEEDS) and the photographer himself, Mr. Luo Hong. As a special gift, Mr. Luo Hong presented one of the exhibits ‘King of Mountains – Mount Gongga’ to Sedgwick Museum for permanent collection and made a donation to the construction of children’s instructional facility in the museum. The ceremony was also emotion-laden with several pleasant surprises for Mr. Luo Hong. Betty, a 10-year-old girl from Beijing, gifted a sketch of ‘King Chapel’ to Mr. Luo Hong to welcome his visit in Cambridge. She entered the annual painting competition for children in China organized UNEP and funded by Luo Hong in 2007 and 2008. On behalf of the Cambridge students, the representative from CEEDS also gifted an original oil painting of mathematical bridge to Mr. Luo Hong as a memory of his Cambridge exhibition.
Early in the afternoon before the opening, accompanied by the museum director Dr. Norman, Mr. Luo Hong visited Christ’s College and its master Dr. Frank Kelly and his wife. Dr. Kelly warmed received Mr. Luo Hong and highly praised his contribution in promoting the environmental protection worldwide. Later on, Mr. Luo Hong visited Prof. Alison Richard, the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University and gifted her an album of the exhibited photographs. With a great interest in Mr. Luo’s tireless trips to Africa and West China, Prof. Richard said, as a top university in the world, Cambridge attaches much importance to raising public awareness of environmental protection and that this photographic exhibition is significant both to Cambridge and the world as a whole.
Additionally, during the opening ceremony, the CEEDS society, also the organizer of this exhibition has announced its next major event, a charity summer camp which will invite 30 to 40 school children who survived yet suffered a lot from the earthquakes in Sichuan and Qinghai provinces. They will have a two-week stay in University of Cambridge and Oxford, where they will be given lectures and basic language classes. The beautiful scenery in both universities and the learning atmosphere will help these children to restore their confidence towards life and rekindle their enthusiasm for study. This summer camp will be organized in collaboration with Sichuan Television Artist Association and Qinghai Artists Association. The funds for this charity camp will partly come from the auctioning of the photographs in this exhibition, and another 10,000 GBP comes from the generous donation from the Luo Hong Fund. The announcement of this summer camp received applause from the audience, many of who made their donation on-site to support it.
When drawing to its end, the opening ceremony was pushed to another climax with a Q&A session. Mr. Luo Hong passionately answered questions from the new reporters and talked with Cambridge students. He also gave each guest present a gift – a set of postcards made from his photographs of penguins and polar bears which he took in the Antarctic Circle.
More photos for Mr. Luo’s photo exhibition in Cambridge:
