This Country is Yours: A Photographic Narrative of Social and Political Transformation in Nepal
- Surendra LawotiDetails
About the Discussion
Surendra Lawoti will present two photographic bodies of work; Pictures from the Nepali Diaspora (2003–04) and This Country is Yours (ongoing from 2012). For Nepali Diaspora, Surendra photographed his fellow Nepali migrants to the US. He visited peoples’ homes in Chicago, Michigan and Boston, and photographed their living spaces, their objects and them. The work looks at a transitory period in peoples’ lives and deals with migration, memory, community, and sense of longing and belonging. This Country is Yours focuses on the activists of six social and political movements of Nepal, which include: women, Adibasi Janajatis, Dalits, Madhesi, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Intersex community, and religious minorities. The work uses Kathmandu as the geographic boundary and combines portraits, landscape and interiors to create a narrative of social and political transformation from the perspective of above mentioned marginalized groups. The work is borne from the context of representational deficit faced by minority groups during the important and historic process of the creation of Nepal’s new constitution.