My name is Karan Shrestha. For the past few years, I have been making artworks surveying the state of water in Nepal. There are several reasons for this, ranging from the ecological to the political to the personal, which has moved me to create, ‘water-givers, memory-keepers, and the shifting forces’.
This installation runs the length of the wall to the left for about 4 meters, with a low, undulating plinth that juts out into the gallery space. There are 3 large ink paintings on cotton paper, suspended at varying heights and angles. The paintings, cut in irregular shapes, get at the nature of water that isn’t bound by geometric forms. Each detailed work shows the interconnectedness and entanglements of ecology and human systems, with the non-human and natural substances.
Traditional water vessels made from copper, brass and aluminium hang in the space, emanating songs and stories relayed by indigenous peoples and local Nepali communities.
The first object in the installation is a large cotton textile hanging on the wall. There are two vertical stripes of green on either side, with a channel of blue in the middle. At the top of the textile, large pink bacteria swim in a pool of black.
The textile speaks to the storage of water and poorly managed sanitation in Nepal, which creates conditions for bacteria to spread and multiply. According to data from the Department of Health Service in Nepal, about 3,500 children die each year due to waterborne diseases.
To the left of the textile, we come to the first painting in this suite of 3, which hangs vertically in the space. This work centres around GLOF’S – or Glacial Lake Outburst Floods.
The Himalayas, the youngest mountain range on Earth, is inherently unstable and battered by heavy monsoon rains from June to September. Nepal’s mountainous terrain makes it highly prone to floods, flash floods, GLOF’s and landslides – and a changing climate intensifies the frequency and severity of natural disasters.
On the top left of this vertical painting, we see the face of an elderly woman emerge from rock formations. She is a landscape. From her right eye, a tear streams down to form a river being dammed, blocked or redirected for human use. To the right of this, a landslide is rendered in rapid flowing strokes; buildings, vehicles and people caught up in the deluge.
Relative to its population, Nepal has the highest fatality rate from landslides. The village we see between the waters on the right side is the Thame settlement that was washed away by a GLOF in 2024.
Finally at the bottom, the image becomes a mythical aquatic creature carrying people and a cow. This image builds on the myth of the Dudh Koshi river, which flows in the Khumbhu region of Nepal. Legend has it that the river was formed by tears of a grieving mother-goddess who lost her children. It is widely accepted that human beings are the only species that shed emotional tears.
As we move to the top-right, we see a group of women in conversation. Their bodies are snow-clad mountains. Across most communities in Nepal, women are the storytellers and elders who guide the subsequent generations. The work here isn’t limited to depicting floods, but attempts to get at oral traditions that encapsulate how we remember, process and pass down events and experiences.
In the second ink painting, rendered in grey, a woman lies asleep, holding a shape resembling a crocodile. The geometry of lines around her face suggest an urban setting. However, she seems to float above the ground. Perhaps carried by water.
In many cultures across Nepal, water isn’t limited to a resource for consumption and profit. Rather a life-giving force that heals as well as witnesses the shifts of time and place. Here, the water reveals to the woman, deep-time. In the droplets are creatures from different ages, and the formation of lands. The woman, drowning and being swallowed, or embracing while rising, surrenders to the memories offered by water.
The final painting is hung lengthways with a gentle curve. It is dominated by a vast, spindly Aedes aegypti mosquito painted in high contrast black and white that looms over the viewer. Dengue, transmitted by this vector, is now considered endemic in Nepal, as humans get infected throughout the year.
In the top centre of the painting, over the mosquito wing, a young girl lies in a hospital bed, protected by a meshed curtain. The tube providing saline solution extends to another hand of a patient in the distance, emerging from mosquito larvae.
In 2024, over 40,000 people were infected, causing 15 deaths, with the Aedes aegypti mosquito being discovered at higher altitudes compared to previous records. The surge in cases during the post-monsoon period caused a blood crisis, leading to a health infrastructure breakdown.
At the bottom of the painting, the giant mosquito leg morphs into a ship hinting at its origin in Sub-Saharan Africa and its spread through maritime commerce, imperial expansion and transatlantic slave trade. Another mosquito leg on the top right transforms to an airplane, as this insect continues to travel to human settlements.
Within the insect’s abdomen is an entire city, upturned. Aedes aegypti mosquitoes thrive in urban environments, breeding in discarded tires, and artificial containers with clear standing water that is easily found across Nepal, due to water scarcity during the hot and dry seasons.
The bottom right of the painting shows people waiting for water from a government pipe. The unequal distribution of water, like the unequal distribution of wealth in Nepal, is characteristic or poor governance and a growing class difference.
The final piece in the installation is a carved woodwork sitting on the plinth, In the woodwork, the fingers of a cupped pair of hands holding a fossil, morph into snakes that exhale forms suggesting clouds or foliage. For most indigenous communities across Nepal, snakes are guardians of water, essential to the harmonious balance within ecologies. The worship of snakes prompts people in Nepal to maintain hydrological continuity, that is a sacred as well as a social duty to remember that water is shared by all life forms.
This is the end of Stop 6.