KATHMANDU.- Kathmandu Triennale 2077 has announced new dates for the fourth edition which will now take place from 27 October - 27 November, 2021. The Triennale, which was due to take place in December 2020, made the decision to delay due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The new dates have been finalised following conversations with partners, artists, advisors, and the team, addressing various concerns surrounding health, safety, production and participation.
Organised by Siddhartha Arts Foundation (SAF), Kathmandu Triennale had named Cosmin Costinas (Executive Director and Curator of Para Site, Hong Kong) as the Artistic Director of the fourth edition and invited Nepal-based artists Hit Man Gurung and Sheelasha Rajbhandari as Curators. As an acknowledgement to the Triennale’s deep rooting in the art and viewpoints of Nepal, as well as of the multiple temporal displacements the Covid-19 pandemic has brought, the Triennale has decided to mark its next edition as Kathmandu Triennale 2077 – the current year of the Nepali calendar. The change of emphasis towards this ancestral system of counting time is in solidarity with the many efforts to decolonise references that the Triennale seeks to present in its programme.
Cosmin Costinas notes, “We are primarily searching for appropriate ways to acknowledge and display the multiplicity of art histories and languages, as well as their reflection of plural ways of dreaming, representing, measuring, and mapping the world, in its medical, social, technological, and cosmic dimensions.” Sheelasha Rajbhandari and Hit Man Gurung add, “Issues connected to migration and displacement, individual and collective trauma and healing, the body, sexuality, and feminist praxis will also be at the core of the Triennale, with a strong anchoring in conversations that have informed the Nepali political and public sphere following its re-establishment as a multi ethnic republic almost two decades ago.” Accounting for the multilevel impact of the ongoing pandemic upon Nepal and the rest of the world, the curatorial team agree that, “it will unavoidably inform the perspective on all these topics, both in the exhibition and the educational and public programmes, adapted to the new realities and unfolding across various culturally and historically significant venues in Kathmandu.”
SAF also announced a partnership between the Foundation and the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation, to jointly organise and present Kathmandu Triennale 2077. This partnership is historic for SAF, and for contemporary arts in Nepal, as it signals a shift towards a more comprehensive, multitiered and cross-sector approach to the support and development of arts and culture in the nation - an effort that was begun by SAF Founder and Director Sangeeta Thapa in 2009. This is also an acknowledgement of the role that culture plays in the betterment of our diverse society, particularly when faced with unprecedented global challenges, and is a testament to its potential to amplify Nepal’s presence in international dialogues.
Ms. Thapa notes, “This partnership opens doors and allows for more opportunities to showcase the myriad of artistic talents and stories of Nepal, and to engage them further in the narratives of the region and beyond. We look forward to a fruitful collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, in presenting a Triennale that is substantial, safe and inclusive, and one that will leave a lasting positive impact on the arts in Nepal.”
Kathmandu Triennale 2077 will thus be jointly organised by the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, and Siddhartha Arts Foundation.
