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Project Title: Being in Kathmandu Valley

Submitted by:
Ashmina Ranjit
Director/Coordinator LASANAA, an alternative art space
25, Mimanani Bahaa,
Kathmandu, Nepal Tel: +977 9851027155 / +977 9741060476 Email: ashmina@gmail.com / lasanaa07@gmail.com Web: www.lasanaa.org.np

Projects Aims, Goals & Objectives:

The aim of this project is to explore, research, and develop exchanges and to create a platform for critical discourse and interaction between artists from different parts of Nepal, beginning with Kathmandu Valley. This ‘artivism’ project intends to re-introduce Nepal to the world through contemporary life and art.

As the research base for conceptual art is almost absent in the Nepali art scene, the goals of this residency are to introduce and encourage its possibility with art practitioners. This can be accomplished by highlighting different personal, social, cultural, philosophical, political and religious perspectives through critical investigations with new art media. The ultimate goal is to develop Nepali artists’ horizons and firmly entrench them within the larger global art context.

Objectives:

1. Reconnect Nepali artists to their cultural past through a series of heritage walk through the UNESCO World Heritage sites of Kathmandu Valley. This serves multiple purposes including rooting art in the local while creatively stretching into the global.

2. Assist artists with individual follow-up research on emerging themes from the heritage walks. This research forms the conceptual basis for the next two months of their creative output.

3. Develop and produce 2 and 3 dimensional works within a time frame of 12 months.

4. Share product development ideas at group interactions.

5. Organizing workshops.

6. Curate physical and online exhibits that re-interpret Nepal’s culture within local and global contexts.

7. Promote concepts and encourage artistic collaboration in new and alternative media.

8. Promote the contemporary art scenario of Nepal through the web and other media.

9. Redefine Nepal as a land of real people living in the present side by side with celebrated heritage

Project Description

Nepal has long been marketing itself in the name of medieval art and artifacts as a Shangri-la and home of Mount Everest – without recognition of Nepalese contemporary life, cultures and evolution. Foreigners see Nepal as a place where real people do not live their present lives. At the other extreme, popular images of Nepal’s “poverty porn” deny it the opportunity to develop and grow. For how long will we cling to our glorious past and pretend to be in a state of denial of our creative evolutionary processes? Changing ideas and values greatly influence the contemporary global community and its cultural development, and as part of the larger global context, Nepal’s creative and constructive arts should also be open to changing ideas and values.

The Nepali art scene has been static for some time, with mass production of derivative artworks, works that strive to be beautiful instead of thought- provoking, or art primarily concerned with balancing modern formal (i.e. plastic) elements such as line, shape and color. Artists claim to be contemporary but conceptual contemporariness has been missing.

At the beginning of the last decade (2001/2), Ashmina Ranjit, upon returning from Australia, started an art movement with other young like-minded artists to encourage artists to come out of canvases, experiment, and explore the possibilities of different media for their individual expression. At one point, many young artists started doing anything in the name of experimentation; artwork again became superficial – losing its qualitative context and conceptual focus. Several governmental and non-government arts organizations attempted to lend their support, but they lacked the sense of contemporariness and vision for the development of art in its broadest sense. Many of these organizations were commercially driven so their encouragement was ill-placed on how one could make and sell art for the tourist market and/or amateur art collectors.

Never too late to take a step forward, this young and hopeful art movement assembled together to found LASANAA in 2007, an alternative art space to fill Nepal’s contemporary art vacuum. In the last 20+ years, Nepal has undergone radical transformations in every facet of society. Nepal and Nepali people need their contemporary cultural identity to be acknowledged and recognized, while transforming the relationship to rich traditions of the past. LASANAA provides opportunities for national and international artists to create individual expressions by exploring beyond traditional art forms. LASANAA, has been developing and implementing different projects to provide its unique brand of ‘artivism’ i.e. art + activism. Thus, LASANAA has succeeded in playing an important role as a resource for contemporary artists and art connoisseurs of Nepal.

Kathmandu Valley is composed of three districts covering an area of 220 square miles. The valley is the cultural and political hub of Nepal. It was accorded HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Heritage_Site"World Heritage Site status by HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNESCO"UNESCO in 1979.

Five major ancient cities of Kathmandu Vallley: Bhaktapur (khopa), Lalitpur (yala), Kirtipur (kipu), Madhyapur (Thimi), and Kantipur (yan/ktm) are the centre of activities for this research-based residency project Being in Kathmandu Valley. Fifteen artists (3 from each city) will be involved in the project. As part of the collaboration with the Embassy of India in Nepal (BP Koirala Foundation) at least one Indian artist will be included in each of these groups. LASANAA’s mission is to further cultural exchange by including international artists in most projects. The residency includes intensive collaborations through workshops, research, interactions, discussions (critique), physical as well as online exhibits of participant artwork, followed by project documentation in the form of a scholarly paper/presentation.

Project Methodology & Implementation

The valley is the cultural and political hub of Nepal. Thus five major ancient cities of Kathmandu Valley have been selected for the research based residency for fifteen Nepali and five guest artists from India. The residency includes intensive collaborations through workshops, research, interactions, discussions (critique), physical as well as online exhibits of participant artwork, followed by project documentation in the form of a scholarly paper presentation.

Phase 1

Each artist cluster will attend a daylong heritage walk and workshop in their specific city. These heritage walks, led by scholars will inspire participants to look beneath Kathmandu Valley’s superficial “myths” to discover innate depths that most Nepalis have lost touch with due to an over emphasis on the touristy Shangri-la focus. Each city centre group will include one Indian artist who, seeing Nepal’s art with fresh eyes, will help Nepali artists see their history’s art and architecture objectively.

Following idea threads presented during the heritage workshops, participants will delve into a weeklong, on-site research phase exploring and interacting with local citizens and field experts. The next two months of individual concept/project development is tempered with fortnightly, half-day larger group interactions with cross-disciplinary guests who will continue to share knowledge and provide project development feedback.

Phase 2

The resulting projects will be shared during a weeklong gallery exhibit, with accompanying online exhibit. During the exhibit, artists will again come together for a 3-day workshop designed to motivate collaboration in new media. Indian artists will participate in the two-month development residency and dependent on the support received from the Indian Embassy, may be able to return to Nepal during the final workshop and exhibit.

Process Documentation

The entire process will be documented through different media such as audio/visual/print, an interactive blog and in it's existing website as well. The project will also be advertised through local/national media such as newspapers, television and radio. Since Lasanaa has organized several art projects – local and international workshops, interactions and exhibitions – any event managed by Lasanaa there remains a huge interest among artists, intellectuals and the general public to challenge traditional thinking, especially in light of Nepal’s recent political and social upheavals. We hope there will be a great interest to participate in and learn from this research and related events.

There are many artists who are technically sound but their awareness in practicing contemporary art through their respective technical knowledge is absent because of lack of concept and clear vision. Thus, many of them are losing their flair and working for commercial purposes only. This project aims to expand both the public and artist’s perceptions of what art can be.

Project Timeframe

Output of Project

1. Five Heritage Walks (one per city centre group)

2. 3 - weeklong residential research periods in each of Kathmandu Valley’s city centre (one research period per group)

3. A minimum of three 2 or 3-dimensional artworks per participant produced during the two-month development and production period

4. Nine, half-day interactions/critiques with cross-disciplinary guests during each two- month research period (three interactions/critiques per group)

5. One interactive reflection program and paper presentation on - 'Redefining Kathmandu Valley in a Contemporary Context'

6. One online art exhibit (indefinite duration)

7. One three-day workshop in conjunction with exhibit (for all participants) resulting in one weeklong art exhibit of select works from the entire year

Target Audience

1. Artists and art connoisseurs

2. Emerging artists and students

3. Viewers from various educational institutions who exert influence over Nepal’s young citizens

4. Planners, policymakers, tourism industry representatives with outreach to international audiences

5. Local communities interested in experiencing the transformation of their cities

Dissemination to Target Audience

LASANAA regularly documents projects for the greater community. Different media such as audio/visual recordings, photo albums, posters, banners, exhibit postcards, online art exhibit, e-media, SMS, a published catalogue, and an interactive blog will be utilized to document and promote the project.

The project will be uploaded on LASANAA’s existing website.

Lasanaa has an e-invite list of more than 2000. In addition Emails and posters will be sent and distributed to fine arts, cultural and media organizations such as ASMITA, IFA, Creative Statements, Martin Chautari, the Fulbright Commission, Aus-AID Alumni, Columbia University Alumni, Alliance Française, the British Council, Social Science Bahaa, Himal Association and all Kathmandu’s galleries to promote and publicize the open day and exhibitions.

Project Impact

LASANAA as an alternative art space has presented many thought provoking exhibitions and performances that challenge the audience to see and feel beyond the surface. This project aims to expand both the public’s and artist’s perceptions of what art can be by encouraging and motivating artists both existing and new to think of other art forms and expressions. The Nepali art world is still conventional and lacks practice in developing new thoughts and art forms. Lasanaa has been encouraging artists and other creative personalities to promote artivism – activism through art for the past three years and is now a recognized and leading organization in this sector. The project will enable Nepali artists to become part of the global art community. The project is unique in that it hopes to bring positive change to the art community as well as Nepali society.