The politics behind photographs

The sixth edition of PhotoKTM will mark a decade of visual storytelling and continue its role as a vital platform for photographers and visual artists to explore the politics of photographs and their role in shaping our histories and futures.

The month-long festival across Kathmandu Valley features 18 exhibitions, slideshows, workshops, artist talks, panel discussions, portfolio reviews, and film screenings. While Nepal Art Council will be the anchor venue, the festival will go on the road in Mangahiti and Chyasal in Patan, Nigu Pukhu in Madhyapur Thimi, Nandi Keshar Bagaincha in Naxal and Tribhuvan University.

The curatorial themes of PhotoKTM 6 Global South Solidarities draws inspiration from the historic 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia, which marks its 70th anniversary this year.

The festival explores the political and cultural legacy of the Third World Project, exploring the history of global resistance and solidarity, and how they have shaped contemporary processes to reclaim sovereignty of regions battered by centuries of colonialism, exploitation, and violence.

The festival spotlights the work and curatorial voices of artists from over 40 artists based in the Global South, from Santiago to Lubumbashi and Quito to Dakar, alongside Nepali photographers and filmmakers.

“We hope this year’s coming together will deepen cultural understanding among artists and cultural communities across the Third World, strengthen reciprocal transnational solidarities through the sharing of our histories, stories, struggles and hopes, and open up pathways for more south-south collaboration and exchange across geographies,” says NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati, co-founder and festival director.

Also featured are eight Nepali artists from the 2025 photo.circle fellowship cohort, whose works explore questions, challenges, and contradictions surrounding the notions of ‘development’ and ‘progress’ in contemporary Nepal.

The festival comes two months after the GenZ protests, at a pivotal moment when Nepal is navigating significant political transitions. Says curator Diwas Raja KC: “From anti-colonial struggles to the Bandung Conference, to the non-alignment movement and revolutionary cultural exchanges, these histories continue to shape how countries like Nepal imagine their place in the world.”

PhotoKTM6 is supported by the Shikshya Foundation Nepal, the Embassy of Switzerland in Nepal, as well as independent non-profit organisations FreeMuse and Cultural Workers Solidarity Front.

“I think it is particularly relevant that these spaces are created and maintained because it is only if people meet and continue to do this important work, in which they think collectively, they work collectively, and they hold up certain values, that they will be capable of contributing to what I would call a ‘free world’,” says yasmine eid-sabbagh, who is the invited interlocutor to this year’s festival.

Ji ta Newa Bhyaa Mawa (I don’t know Nepal Bhasa)

Jyoti Shrestha

Jyoti Shrestha was born to Newar parents in Kathmandu but grew up without learning the mother tongue, Nepal Bhasa. ‘My parents, with the best of intentions, taught us English and Nepali—languages of success and survival in a world that had set ours aside... A Newar without language, I felt alien in the very culture that was meant to be mine,’ writes Shrestha in her testimony.

Nepal Bhasa is in UNESCO’s ‘definitely endangered’ list. Shrestha has begun to learn her language with help from her parents, and in doing so, their relationship has shifted for the better. She adds: “No census counts the intimacy of a shared memory, the tenderness of language passed between generations, or the weight of an inherited silence.”

The Land Remembers Our Name

Rejin Purja

The Department of Mines and Geology has confirmed the presence of iron ore in Jhumlawang in East Rukum. Iron mining has not started yet but a Kathmandu-based private company is said to have won the bid at Rs40.3 million. If the project indeed takes off, most of the families will have to be evacuated.

“Not only will they lose their houses, land, and forests, but their roots, culture, and autonomy are also at stake. How can this project be considered of national benefit when it forces the very people it should serve to live in fear of their future?,” Rejin Purja writes in his testimony.

Economic development exploits the natural resources of native and indigenous communities. Such projects may boost GDP and corporate profits, but they rarely improve the lives of the people whose land is being extracted from. This work reflects the uncertainty felt by the local people about their village’s future.

Fragmented Land and Me

Sujata Khadka

Sujata Khadka’s ancestral home in Godavari’s Jharuwarasi was destroyed in the 2015 earthquake, after which her family built a new house on a small plot of land nearby. In the decade since the earthquake, rapid land trade has turned the farmland surrounding her home into a housing development.

For the past 10 years, Khadka has been watching natural and man-made events unfold on the plots from her window on the second floor of her house. The land has been witness to playing children, negotiating brokers, bulldozers, and prowling wildlife. But despite relentless hemming and hawing by buyers and sellers over the past decade, no houses have been built on the land.

“This misshapen land feels like a stage where a cast of characters performs an ongoing act,” says Khadka. “Perhaps this land and I are spectators to this drama.”

Why doesn’t home feel like home?

Karma Tshering Gurung

Karma Tshering Gurung was born in Manang to a Manangi family, where he was raised with his siblings. But in recent times, whenever he has visited his family in Manang, he has felt a sense of unease, like the place sees him as an occasional visitor, an outsider who no longer understands the aspirations of his people. As Manang becomes a tourist spot, Gurung’s brother thinks it is a good idea to tear down their ancestral house and build a snooker house in its place. But Gurung thinks the house is their Appa’s legacy, and worth preserving. The brothers’ ideas of home have diverged.

“With a camera in hand, I am trying to rediscover my relationship with this place, with my past, navigating ideas of home and belonging tied to Manang,” he says. “Maybe home for me is no longer just a place, but this search for identity, memory and connection.”

Life and Struggle of Garment Workers

Taslima Akhter (Bangladesh)

This project focuses on the millions of workers who leave their villages and move into crowded worker barracks in the cities of Bangladesh, in search of a better life.

Between Us, a Thread

Ahmed Alaqra (Ramallah)

A quiet gesture between photographers, image-makers, and those who hold memory like a fragile light. Palestinian, Arab, scattered — yet orbiting the same wound.

Possible and Imaginary Lives

yasmine eid-sabbagh / Rozenn Quéré

An exhibition, based on family photographs and taped interviews, tells the story of four strong and feisty Palestinian-Lebanese sisters, exiled to the four corners of the globe.

Martyrs, Saints & Sellouts

Siona O’Connel (South Africa)

Comprised of photographs by Benny Gool, Zubeida Vallie and Adil Bradlow, documenting apartheid South Africa, this exhibition presents a vivid narrative of violence, loss and injuries that continue to reverberate under the rhetoric of the post apartheid landscape.

Humo, Semilla, Raíz

Isadora Romero (Ecuador)

An alternate look into environmental issues through the prism of possibility, instead of catastrophic consequence is what this exhibition brings. Romero’s visual research engages with how the loss of ancestral memory and Indigenous knowledge resulting from colonisation, forced displacement, and racism is causing seeds to disappear at an alarming rate.

First week schedule (selected)

Friday, 14 November

Bhandarkhal Garden, Patan Museum, 5:30pm -7:30pm

Festival Opening + Award of Excellence

Saturday, 15 November

Yala Maya Kendra, Patan Dhoka

3pm-4pm

Demounting Louis Agassiz – Artistic Renegotiation of Archive, Memory & Place. Talk by Sasha Huber (moderated by Diwas Raja Khatri)

4:30pm-6pm

Witness or Accomplice: Photography, Human Rights and the Question of Freedom. Talk by Prof. Siona O’ Connell (moderated by NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati)

Sunday, 16 November

Yala Maya Kendra

July, Unfinished. Jaheen Faruque Amin in conversation with Sabnam Lama, 3pm- 4pm

When The World is Blind – Images by Palestinians. Ahmed Alaqra in conversation with yasmine eid-sabbagh, 4- 6pm

Manga Hiti, 7pm-8pm

Slideshow – Who Does The River Belong To?

Monday, 17 November

Yala Maya Kendra, 3pm - 4pm

Memory is an Inaccurate Place: Dialogues Across Time, Territories, and Histories. Isadora Romero in conversation with Tanvi Mishra

4:30pm-6pm

Third Camera – a Film Series: Ernest Cole: Lost and Found

Dir. Raoul Peck

2024 | 1h 46m | English

Tuesday, 18 November

Yala Maya Kendra

Sustaining Art Ecosystems That Resist and Nurture – Part 1

Paola Farran in conversation with Jessica Lim, 3pm- 4pm

Sustaining Art Ecosystems That Resist and Nurture – Part 2

Chelsea Chua in conversation with Tif Ng, 4pm:30-6pm

Khapinchhen, Patan

A Photographer’s Fifty-Year Journey in Nepal. A Slideshow and Talk with Kevin Bubriski, 7-7:30pm

PhotoKTM Bhoé, 7:30pm-9:30pm

Rs1,800 (early bird), Rs2,000 (door sale)

Wednesday, 19 November

Yala Maya Kendra

3pm- 4pm

Sustaining Art Ecosystems That Resist and Nurture – Part 3

Andrea Thal in conversation with Diwas Raja Khatri

4:30pm-6pm

We must refuse silence! Samir Eskanda, Shahidul Alam, and Tabara Korka Ndiaye in conversation with yasmine eid-sabbagh

Thursday, 20 November

Nepal Art Council, 4pm- 6pm

Walk-thru at NAC with Enuma Rai, Jyoti Shrestha, Karma Tshering Gurung, Manoj Bohara, Manjit Lama, Rejin Purja, Sujata Khadka, Sushila Bishwakarma

More details here.

PHOTOKTM6

14 November-14 December

Kathmandu Valley

All events free and open