Exploring Time, Identity and Nationhood: On Karan Shrestha’s Waiting For Nepal

The recently concluded edition of the Kathmandu Triennale—which was on display from 1-31 March 2022—has been intensively prepared over the past three years. The first year saw hopeful uprisings across continents clamouring against an order that was breaking, and the subsequent two were marked by the order breaking down under the unexpected pressure of the pandemic, while unleashing more demons and entrancements along the way. Kathmandu Triennale 2077, both in its infrastructural development as well as in its artistic and intellectual propositions, has been supported through these cycles by the strength and steadfastness of a crucial and critical dialogue between more than 130 artists, collectives and collaborators from over 50 nations. They represent vast depths of ancestral knowledge and its contemporary manifestations, histories of resistance and constant reinvention, along with the exuberance of imagination and the power of speaking out. Today, the conversations proposed in the Triennale’s framework at the beginning of our journey seem to resonate even louder. They echo across geo-political borders, boundaries of time and ever-changing divides between people to present an exhibition and programme with empathy, one that is drawn from our global collective experience and memory.

This on-site conversation between Triennale curator Sheelasha Rajbhandari and inter-disciplinary artist Karan Shrestha focusses on the latter’s photo series Waiting for Nepal (2011-2012) that was exhibited at the Triennale. The artist reflects on what it means to be Nepali in the twenty-first century, given the political, economic and environmental turmoil in the country. He also shares how his work responds to the long and hopeful transition of power from the monarchy to the federal democratic republic, highlighting the disillusionment and constant political instability that has followed since. Shrestha’s photographic series is a result of his realisation of the complexity of the act of waiting—as one of desperation or aspiration—and how the notion of time entails different meanings for different people.

^{(Featured Image: Installation view of Waiting by Karan Shrestha at Nepal Art Council, Kathmandu. By Katha Haru. 2022. Courtesy of Kathmandu Triennale 2077.)}

Recorded on 30 March 2022.