KATHMANDU, June 4: Sagarmatha Next, a leading platform dedicated to environmental awareness and contemporary art in the Himalayas, is set to launch a powerful new exhibition titled At the Tipping Point: Art and Ecology from the Rooftop of the World. The exhibition will open on Thursday, June 5, 2025, at 4 PM at Taragaon Next, with support from the Saraf Foundation and curatorial direction by renowned art historian Dr. Arshiya Lokhandwala.
At the Tipping Point invites viewers into a compelling exploration of climate, culture, and interconnection from the vantage point of the Himalayas. Drawing inspiration from postcolonial theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s concept of "planetarity," the exhibition challenges traditional notions of human dominion over nature. Instead, it encourages a reframing of our relationship with the Earth—emphasizing mutual responsibility and a recognition of our place within a delicate, interdependent ecosystem.
The Himalayas, warming at nearly twice the global average, are a stark symbol of the accelerating ecological transformations unfolding across the planet. In response, At the Tipping Point brings together 12 leading contemporary artists whose works engage with themes ranging from indigenous knowledge systems and spiritual ecologies to scientific inquiry and climate activism. The exhibition spans media including video, sound, sculpture, installation, photography, and performance, connecting geographies from the Arctic to the Andes, and from the rice fields of Nepal to the digital landscapes of data and code.
Ninth National Art Exhibition in photographs
Among the featured works is Himali Singh Soin’s we are opposite like that, a poetic video set in the Svalbard archipelago that meditates on failed extraction, climate change, and colonial residue. Swiss artist Ursula Biemann presents Forest Mind, a collaborative video essay with Colombia’s Inga community, exploring the epistemic intelligence of forests. Utsa Hazarika’s Yantra/Bloom reimagines Delhi’s iconic sundial as a living sculpture blooming with jasmine, while Maksud Ali Mondal’s Fungal Habitat offers a living installation shaped by mushroom cultures.
Nepali artist Samyukta Bhandari’s Echoes of Survival reflects on the disappearance of house sparrows amidst the urban soundscape, while Amit Machamasi documents the transformation of Bhaktapur’s farmlands under the pressures of urbanization. Salil Subedi will debut Earth Emergence, a live, immersive performance using body, mud, and sound to invoke a primordial ecological consciousness. Additional highlights include Monica Ursina Jäeger’s Liquid Time, Joana Moll’s data-driven 4004, and Chris Jordan’s haunting documentation of plastic pollution through Midway and Albatross. Works by Saurganga Darshandhari and Robertina Šebjanič further explore ritual, food heritage, underwater ecologies, and the sonic dimensions of environmental collapse.
Following the exhibition opening, Salil Subedi will perform Earth Emergence at 5 PM. This ritualistic, interdisciplinary act invites audiences into an intimate and visceral connection with the planet, embodying the themes of the exhibition through a live artistic response.
The exhibition promises to be a landmark event in South Asia’s cultural calendar—an urgent, poetic, and necessary meditation on life in the age of climate crisis.
