Da Vinci, The Genius, exhibition, Science Centre, Singapore.

Leonardo Da Vinci is coming to Singapore. More precisely, the "Da Vinci, the Genius" exhibition is opening on the 16th May 2009 at the Science Centre. When I heard this news, I was both surprised and unsurprised. I shall explain.

I was surprised because I had suggested just such an exhibition to the Singaporean arts authorities a few years ago and got snubbed. I was unsurprised because I had suggested just such an exhibition to the Singaporean arts authorities a few years ago - and got snubbed.

The story is a curious one. Some gentlemen emailed me out the blue, with a project to build some of Leonardo Da Vinci's wonderful machines and exhibit them around the world: could I help in bringing it to Singapore, they asked me?

Now, I wondered, too, why they had asked me...but, nevertheless I did contact some people in Singapore regarding whether they would be interested in an exhibition of the work of Leonardo Da Vinci. I duly had a meeting with some arts people at the National Museum. To cut a short conversation even shorter, they said that Leonardo Da Vinci was not for them (perhaps he was just not enough of an artist, to interest representatives of Singapore's government art body?) - however, they suggested that I should try the Singapore Science Centre. Ah. Clearly, they thought Leonardo Da Vinci more of a scientist, than an artist, and did not want him in the Art Museum, as I had proposed.

There was a problem in their suggestion. I was already in contact with the Science Centre regarding my son, Ainan. In fact, the person I was supposedly in contact with was in charge of events - so I presume, he would, in fact, have been just the right person to contact regarding Leonardo Da Vinci. That, however, was the problem. You see, he already wasn't replying to my emails and phone calls, regarding the matter of my son. I had held a meeting with him and some of his colleagues and many big promises were made and hopes raised. Yet, when I wrote to realize some of those hopes, my mails were just ignored. I wrote quite a few times and called quite a few times - but only ever got silence.

Thus, I had a difficulty with the suggestion that I should contact the Science Centre, since the very man who would be responsible for setting up a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition there, had I brought it to him, is the very man who was busily ignoring my attempts at contact. Therefore, I did what I thought most appropriate: I did nothing further to raise the issue of a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition in Singapore.

Surprise, surprise...several years later, they have brought in just such an exhibition. I am left to wonder whether the people at the National Museum queried the Science Centre people about whether I had contacted them...and then set the whole thing in motion themselves.

Anyway, it is good that a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition is finally coming to Singapore - even if only readers of this blog will know that I made just such a proposal to the arts authorities several years ago. It is possible that that proposal is what has led to this exhibition, however dilatorily. I suppose I will never know...

Nevertheless, I shall make a point of attending the exhibition when it opens. It is pleasing to think that people still care about the thinking of a man who lived 500 years ago. All hope is not lost in Man, when some still appreciate those who have been creative, in the past.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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