Bahar Mozhgan Saeidi

I have always been drawn to the way children look at the world. Before they learn what things are supposed to be, they ask what else they might become. A cardboard box becomes a house, a shadow becomes a creature, a few colors become an entire world. There is something precious in that way of seeing—curious, unafraid, and full of possibility. I grew up with Persian art, stories, poems, and the worlds they opened up for me. As I grew older, my curiosity took me in another direction: toward science and the endless questions of how we think, how we learn, and how we make sense of the world. Perhaps, in the end, these aren't so different. Both begin with the willingness to wonder. Living away from where I grew up has made me think more about the things that travel with us: a story remembered, a poem repeated, a way of seeing the world passed from one generation to another. Culture survives not simply because we preserve it, but because each generation finds its own way of making it alive again. I hope we can give children a place not only to receive stories, but to create them; to put their own words and colors into the world and, perhaps, leave something for the children who come after them. Perhaps, in this way, we can help children hold on to the instincts we are all born with; the courage to wonder, the freedom to imagine, and the belief that what we create is worth sharing.