In Person: The KTK-Belt Project at PhotoKTM5
A non-profit organisation based in Nepal, the KTK-Belt Project works on building new models for biodiversity conservation, production and the dissemination of knowledge, situated in the Koshi-Tappu and Kanchenjunga belt. Working with communities in six main nodes in eastern Nepal, differentiated by moving along the vertical axis of the belt, the project collectively founded a “Vertical University” from the plains to the high Himalayan ranges. This project engages local youth and students to document the rich traditional knowledge and learning frameworks in their landscape. The Vertical University also provides training in documentation methods and the creation of archives to facilitate the preservation of local knowledge systems that are not archived or represented in mainstream structures of knowledge production.
One of the key repositories implemented by the organisation is the Indigenous Knowledge Portal (IKP), initiated between 2015 and 2016, which aims at privileging situated knowledge derived from community practices that are on the verge of disappearance. The IKP is conceived in the region of Yangshila, consisting of the second node of the organisation’s Vertical University. Yangshila is home to diverse medicinal plants and endangered biodiversity, knowledge that has remained contained within the local communities. Interviews conducted by the IKP team on the local medicinal plants are on display from 25 February till 31 March, 2023 at Khapinchhen, Patan, as part of the fifth edition of Photo Kathmandu (PhotoKTM5).
In this conversation, Ganga Limbu and Kishor K. Sharma talk about KTK Belt, the six nodes of their project, formulating collaborative work and documentation from the site, as well as grounding their work within the communities and landscapes they feature. They detail the significance of research and training for youth fellows in facilitating documentation processes and the crucial role that indigenous knowledge repositories play in efforts towards sustainability. The project aligns with the thematic engagement of PhotoKTM5, highlighting narratives that slow down, engage with and champion an involvement with our world as a living entity against the fatalistic rhetoric of the planetary crisis and climate discourse.
Ganga Limbu is KTK-BELT Project’s first Youth Fellow as well as the youngest Programme Officer in Media, Outdoor Education, and the Indigenous Knowledge program. She educates and mentors sixth to eighth-graders from local community schools to become conservation leaders, and trains them to document local knowledge and plant diversity as a part of KTK-Belt’s Vertical University Project. She now also leads the media division of the project, which is responsible for video documentation of farmers, herders, fisherfolk, and weavers’ knowledge as well as cultural and tribal practices.
Kishor K. Sharma is a freelance documentary photographer, previously associated with photo.circle and the Photo Kathmandu festival. He currently consults with the KTK-Belt Project.
(Featured Image: From the Indigenous Knowledge Portal [IKP], by the KTK-Belt Project. Courtesy of Ganga Limbu, Kishor K. Sharma and the KTK Belt Project.0
This conversation was recorded on February 27, 2023.
[Images in the video by Luja Manandhar and Samagra Shah for PhotoKTM. Courtesy of PhotoKTM.]
Revisit Anisha Baid's essay on the online iteration of The Skin of Chitwan, which is on display as a physical exhibit at this year’s PhotoKTM5. To know more about previous iterations of PhotoKTM, read Ketaki Varma's conversation with the festival founder, NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati, and Sukanya Deb's essay on the Feminist Memory Project by Nepal Picture Library.
