On November 11, 2011, the opening ceremony of Asian Students’ Photography Exhibition Retrospective, incorporating the award ceremony of the 6^th Asian Students’ Photography Exhibition, was formally held in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China —— a city usually referred as the “Pearl of Taihu Lake”. With the theme of “Image and Style of Asian Youth”, the Retrospective was co-hosted by the Education Forum for Asia, People's Government of Wuxi Municipality, China Youth Daily and China University Media Union, and was co-organized by the Foreign Affairs Office of Wuxi Municipal People's Government, Wuxi Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the Education Forum for Asia Training Center.

 

  Wu Fengfeng, Secretary-General of People's Government of Wuxi Municipality, hosted the opening ceremony while Yao Wang, Secretary-General of Education Forum for Asia, and Zhou Jieqing, Director of the Standing Committee of Wuxi Municipal People’s Congress, made speeches at the ceremony. It fell to Xu Wenxin, President of China Youth Daily, to announce the list of prize-winning students of the 6^th Asian Students’ Photography Exhibition. He Luli, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, Yao Wang, Secretary-General of Education Forum for Asia, Xu Wenxin, President of China Youth Daily, Zhao Long, Vice Director of the Standing Committee of Jiangsu Provincial People’s Congress, Zhou Jieqing, Director of the Standing Committee of Wuxi Municipal People’s Congress, Wu Jianxuan, Vice Mayor of People's Government of Wuxi Municipality, and Xie Hailong, Vice Secretary-General of China Photographers Association, attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony and conferred certificates and prizes on those prize-winning students. In addition, Cai Dagang, Director of the Foreign Affairs Office of Wuxi Municipal People's Government and Lei Qunhu, Chairman of Wuxi Federation of Literary and Art Circles attended the ceremony which attracted a Chinese and foreign audience of over two hundred people, including students from Jiangnan University and representatives from San Antonio, Texas, Wuxi’s twin town. The Asian Students’ Photography Exhibition Retrospective was held at the same time as the China 2011 27^th Asian International Stamp Exhibition. The event took place at the invitation of the organizing committee of the latter and the People's Government of Wuxi Municipality. At the Retrospective, which took place between November 11-15, 212 prize-winning pictures of the past five exhibitions were displayed. Over one hundred thousand people who visited the stamp exhibition at Wuxi Taihu International Expo Centre had the opportunity to appreciate those wonderful photographs.

 

   The Asian Students’ Photography Exhibition was launched in 2006 by the Education Forum for Asia along with China Youth Daily. In 2008, China University Media Union became another valued sponsor. The Exhibition is open to young students in the Asia-Pacific Region and beyond, and is committed to the objectives of carrying forward the enormous richness of Asia’s ancient and modern cultures, displaying the great diversity of customs and traditions, the magnificent geographic landscape and young people’s image and style of the region, promoting exchange in artistic and aesthetic photography, as well as disseminating the values of Asian cultures across the world.

 

    Six Exhibitions have been held since its initiation. Over ten thousand pictures taken by university and college students have been collected from nearly twenty Asia-Pacific countries such as China (including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan), Korea, Mongolia, Japan, Vietnam, Nepal, Singapore, Malaysia, India, United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan and the United States. And 212 prize-winning pictures were selected at the 6^th Asian Students’ Photography Exhibition. As always, after the close of the formal Exhibition, all the prize-winning works are exhibited at universities, colleges and educational institutions of China or other Asia-Pacific countries.

 

    With six years development, the Asian Students’ Photography Exhibition has increasingly become an international platform for young students in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond to exchange photographic technique and to display their artistic talent. The Asian Students’ Photography Exhibition has contributed to the promotion of communication and the cultivation of friendship among young people in different regions and from different cultural backgrounds, as well as contributed to the building of a harmonious and prosperous Asia society.