May-June 2012

from the editor
Time brings change – whether we like it or not and so is it with SPACES.
With a new team in place, we continue bringing a glimpse of the visual
reality and its debate, the spirit of the place in all it’s positivity as well
wrinkles that we notice in our environment as well as beyond. We would
like to start by thanking Uday Sundar for all his efforts as the editor for
SPACES for developing it these past years – who leaves us now for new
pastures and we wish him well. We also welcome all the new members in
the team who bring in renewed energy with their respective experiences
and look forward to their contribution positively for SPACES.
This issue is an interesting blend of chaos, confusion and order our writers
have observed, explored and put together. As Nepal continues with the
political instability with the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly without
a Constitution – our general visual environment reflects this confusion
too. But surprisingly with the decay of existing corners of the cities, new
interesting spaces seem to sprout up almost as regularly to catch our eye
and bring it for focus.
Yet the rich pockets of cultural heritage – art, architecture and craft that
we are blessed with continue to remain as a source of inspiration for the
observant. The challenges for each of us remains whether you look at it
from an internal or external perspective from your space – a search for a
cohesive identity that reflects and binds us Nepalese together in each of
our vocation. Sometimes the day-to-day experiences of survival within our
cities – the roads or traffic, the river or the garbage, the power cuts or the
fuel shortage is a microcosm of our reality which each of the featured local
projects has struggled against and succeeded in their own many ways.
The reality of our deteriorating environment beyond the pages of SPACES
remains a lull before the storm and we do hope that future articles will
strive to bring in the awareness and be a medium for change. We should
not give up as we begin untying these self-created knots – it just demands
a lot more education, challenge and respect for each other as well as
ourselves. As we learn and share this - we will then realize the richness that
we still have and what we can build creatively.
Pegasus Children’s Project In Nepal is a commendable project featured –
utilizing the need of the hour, turning bags of dirt into durable buildings.
Imagine if we could recycle, reuse some of the abundant disorganized
garbage in our environment to build these shelters for the needy by
employing local Nepali workers. With the Yala Mandala story in Kwalakhu
- Swati continues to write incisive features on Adaptive reuse. The earthy
Nepali textures and feel of this space is even more striking as you reflect
upon the projects professional and sustainable business potential.
Finally the feature on Uniting Nepali Artists delves deeper into this creative
contemporary chord that exists today. This is an important exercise on
Unity not only from the creative viewpoint but the more profound message
perhaps being for the larger good for the Country as a whole. .
United We Stand. Read on.
Sarosh Pradhan