India’s acclaimed director Satyajit Ray is among 16 global thinkers and artists whose portraits have been displayed at the UN headquarters in an exhibition that honors them for their contribution to the common good of humanity.
‘The Transformative Power of Art’ exhibition, organized by President of the General Assembly Sam Kutesa, will be thrown open to the public on June 30.
The late director, who received an honorary Oscar in 1992, the same year that he was bestowed with India’s highest civilian award Bharat Ratna, is among the 16 personalities whose portraits has been displayed.
The others are Pakistani rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, renowned musician from Gabon Pierre-Claver Akendengua, legendary American author Maya Angelou, American folk singer Joan Baez, British actress Audrey Hepburn, influential Russian painter Vassily Kandinsky, Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, Chinese actress Gong Li, Grammy Award-winning South African singer and civil rights activist Miriam Makeba, French philosopher Edgar Morin, Iranian actress Fatemeh Motamed-Arya, Ugandan poet Okot p’Bitek, Brazilian social documentary photographer Sebastialo Salgado, Nigerian playwright and poet Wole Soyinka and Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa Thiong’o.
The exhibition is part of the United Nations “2015: Time for Global Action” campaign.