Part of the international Inside Out project created by TED-awarded photographer JR, Hope for Tomorrow tells the story of a community: the inhabitants of and others connected to the Swotha Square in old Patan.

Inside Out is a global participatory art project that sheds light on people and their stories via group action. Participants in the project are given full control of the creative process, photographing community members and displaying these portraits in an exterior space, so as to make a statement in the form of public artwork and share that message with the rest of the world.

Since its inception in 2011, many Inside Out projects have been conducted on various themes such as hope, diversity and climate change, among others, culminating in more than 1,200 group actions. Participants have pasted around 250,000 posters in more than 127 countries.

It had been the earthquakes that struck Nepal on April 25 and May 12, killing around 9,000 people, that had incited the Swotha community to become involved with Inside Out. Sixty portraits were taken of people who either resided in or took part in the daily life of the square in some capacity or the other. These photographs were then pasted on the walls of a house in front of the Radha-Krishna Mandir—one of the structures destroyed in the earthquake—serving to illustrate the diversity, resilience and optimism of Nepali people.

The group action was made possible thanks to the community itself, as well as a number of external actors, including the Inside Out team in New York that offered financial and technical support; Cosy Nepal’s co founders—Camille Hanesse and Jiten Shrestha—who instigated the group action; and Nicolas Marie, who took the photographs.