The Car­ni­val in the Sky — A Kite Fly­ing Fes­ti­val and Ex­hi­bi­tion kicked off on April 19 and 20 at the North Park, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, of­fer­ing a cap­ti­vat­ing dis­play of cul­tur­al har­mo­ny through the en­chant­i­ng art of kite fly­ing.

Or­gan­ised by the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion and the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture, and the Arts in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Em­bassy of the Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na, the fes­ti­val en­chant­ed at­ten­dees with a cel­e­bra­tion of cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty.

The fes­ti­val be­gan with an of­fi­cial launch fea­tur­ing an ex­hi­bi­tion of craft­ed kites by kite mas­ters from Shan­dong Province, Chi­na, as well as lo­cal artists who had tak­en part in a cre­ative kite-mak­ing work­shop ear­li­er in the day. At­ten­dees were in­vit­ed to fly kites and wit­ness the beau­ty of Chi­nese tra­di­tion­al de­signs in­fused with Trin­bag­on­ian el­e­ments.

Dur­ing the of­fi­cial launch, Chargé d’Af­faires of the Chi­nese Em­bassy, Yang Han, em­pha­sised the pro­found cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance of kites as sym­bols of Chi­nese her­itage and civil­i­sa­tion. He high­light­ed how kites tran­scend ge­o­graph­i­cal bound­aries to be­come a glob­al cul­tur­al icon, unit­ing in­di­vid­u­als world­wide through their grace and sym­bol­ism in the skies.

The event al­so saw the pres­ence of spe­cial guests such as Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Re­i­ta Tou­s­saint, and CEO of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), Kei­ba Ja­cob Mot­t­ley who de­liv­ered re­marks dur­ing the for­mal cer­e­mo­ny, fur­ther en­rich­ing the fes­ti­val with their in­sights and con­tri­bu­tions. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Claudelle Mc Kel­lar graced the event as a spe­cial guest, adding to the cel­e­bra­to­ry at­mos­phere of cul­tur­al ex­change.