BRUCE MCCOY OWENS

Anthropologist
United State of America

Bruce Owens first came to Nepal in 1977 [V.S. 2034], during which he encountered a spectacle that has fascinated him ever since; hundreds of people were struggling to pull an improbably enormous chariot along what was then a muddy road. Owens came back to study this spectacle, the Rāto Matsyendranāthko Rath Jātrā, as a window into Newā: culture in 1982 [V.S. 2039] and stayed for nearly three years. He has seen it nine times, including two of its elaborate twelve-year celebrations, and has learned something new every time. Owens hopes that the photographs in his exhibition at Photo Kathmandu 2016 conveys some of the beauty that he found in every aspect of this extraordinary celebration, and provides a glimpse into the vast collaboration that makes it possible.