Curated by Diwas Raja Kc and NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati
Research Fellows: Agastaya Thapa, Nisha Rai, Nikita Tripathi

To become public is to be seen and accounted for in history. The journey of Nepali women from within the boundaries of domesticity to the openness of public life is a move from obscurity to memory. This exhibition showcases materials gathered by Nepal Picture Library in its effort to create a dedicated women’s archive. It rides on the feminist impulse to memorialize women’s pasts in the belief that their historical visibility will advance the case for liberation.

This multi-part exhibition is an act of willing Nepali women en masse into public memory. It flashes instances from the past when women have taken on political struggle, addressed assemblies, paved new paths through education, published and shaped opinion, travelled and described the world, become figures of authority, and broken social norms. What we see is a view of how publicness itself has emerged as a key feminist strategy in Nepal.

The Feminist Memory Project – Nepal Picture Library

The Feminist Memory Project is a project by Nepal Picture Library that seeks to create a visual archive of women’s movements in Nepal. Through gathered archival photographs, other documents and oral histories from around Nepal that capture women in pivotal moments of Nepali history, it consolidates contributions made by pioneering figures who remain marginalized in our male dominated historiographies.

The research for this project was made possible through support from Magnum Foundation.