NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati
ArtistNayanTara Gurung Kakshapati is a Nepal-based photographer and curator. She attended Mt Holyoke College, Massachusetts and the SALT Institute of Documentary Studies, Portland, Maine to study documentary photography. Her work seeks to embrace themes such as change, identity, gender, and history within the context of ‘the New Nepal’. She enjoys working across platforms to connect visuals, sound, research, education, activism; using storytelling as an underlying approach. In 2007 NayanTara co-founded photo.circle, a photography collective that has created a vibrant platform for emerging and professional photographers in Nepal. In 2010 photo.circle established the Nepal Picture Library, a digital photo archive containing over 55,000 images that contributes to the study of Nepali photography, and raises questions about memory, identity, and the history of the region through images. NayanTara’s work has been exhibited internationally, including Photo Phnom Penh, Cambodia (2015), OBSCURA Festival of Photography, Malaysia (2013), Delhi Photo Festival, India (2013), International Human Rights Film Festival, Switzerland (2013), and Kirkkopuisto Photo Annual, Finland (2013). The residency and exhibition presented by Gallery 44 and SAVAC will be her first in Canada.
