As part of their “The Green Lumbini Initiative”, WWF brought together 12 artists from across Kathmandu and plans to send them on a three day trip to Lumbini starting Wednesday. The 12 artists are to create two paintings each depicting the interconnection between nature and humans on their trip. [break]
“Artists play a very vital role in the interconnectivity of humans with nature,” said Acharya Karma Syangpo Sherpa, Vice-Chairman of the Lumbini Development Trust (LDT). WWF partnered with LDT in 2010 with the aim of developing and conserving the Lumbini region and is working with the trust on this event.
“When artists chisel a rock that people used to spit on into a work of art portraying Buddha, people stop spitting on it and start worshiping it, this is the power that artists possess. We need to find the importance of important monuments like Pashupanti and Lumbini and make efforts to conserve them,” he added.
The Green Lumbini Initiative is a movement that aims to conserve Lumbini in way that works with the Buddhist philosophy of interdependence and interconnectivity. As part of the project, the works of the twelve artists will be exhibited at Siddartha Art Gallery, Babar Mahal upon their return and will go on sale, the money raised from the sale of which will help fund the initiative.
The twelve artists participating in this initiative are, Bidhata K.C, Gyanu Gurung, Saurganga Darshandhari, Sunita Rana, Sushma Shakya, Sagar Manandhar, Hit man Gurung, Mekh Limbu, Prithivi Shrestha, Mukesh Shrestha, Samudra Man Shrestha and Binod Pradhan.
“I think Nepali people are built for conservation,” said Anil Manandhar, Country Representative at WWF Nepal adding, “We have a culture where we worship everything and I don’t know how we moved away from this culture. But I hope that the work of our artists has the desired effect on people and we move back to our conservative nature.”
The Green Lumbini Initiative working for the conservation of Lumbini has three sub-projects they aim to work on. The first, ‘Pipal for People’ aims to give new life to the uprooted Pipal tree Buddha was born under by tissue-culture and subsequent production of its saplings.
The ‘My Tree’ projects aims to raise funds by giving individuals and organizations the opportunity to own a tree and find their space within the sacred circle of life, the Lumbini Garden. The third project, ‘One Million Trees in Ten Years’ aims to plant a million trees outside the Lumbini Sacred Garden by 2020.
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