CUC is an independent, non-profit organization which works in the fields of art, cultural heritage, environment, HIV awareness, human rights, and youth empowerment.
“CUC has organized many photography exhibitions in the past but for short periods of time,” says Hari Bangsha Kirant, who founded CUC in 1990. The veteran goes on, “We were already using the restaurant space on Sundays, when it’s closed, to conduct various CUC activities. Since I also own the restaurant, our team at CUC thought of turning it into a permanent gallery space.”
The talk about an open Galleria CUC began only 10 to 12 days prior to the inauguration. “We wanted to do something for the World Photography Day on August 19,” says Swapnil Acharya, the creative director and event coordinator of CUC and an amateur photographer. “I managed to get in touch with the photographers, mostly through Flickr, an online photo sharing website.”
Galleria CUC had nearly 700 visitors on its first day.
Galleria CUC plans to exhibit works of art in several phases and themes. Aptly titled ‘The Beginning’, the first cycle consists of 20 works by nine amateur and professional photographers on the theme of culture. Other than 61-year-old Kirant, who is a well-known veteran photographer of Nepal, the rest of aspiring photographers are from ages 17 to 29. The youngest is Kushal Goyal, an A-level student. For most of them, this is their first public show. Even for Kirant, this is his first time displaying his photographs that were taken with a digital camera.
“We wanted to create a platform for passionate photographers who can’t afford to rent a gallery space to do their individual shows and also photography as an art,” informs Kirant. CUC is providing the space as well as bearing costs for the materials to put up the show. The participating photographers are only required to pay for the printing.
“We welcome all levels of photographers, and interested participants can send us some of their digital images,” says Acharya, who is already on the lookout for photographers for the next cycle, ‘Flora’. “But priority will be given to people who haven’t exhibited previously.”
Each cycle will last for approximately two months. The cycles that will follow ‘Flora’ are ‘Mist’ and ‘lol:D’, the acronym of a popular cyber lingo: “Laugh Out Loud”.
The photographs on display at Galleria CUC capture the everyday sights of a Nepali—from religious sites to rituals, from people to places. The compositions of the frames are admirable and so are the contents. These photographs of familiar places are unique because they don’t have the postcard-like composition—such as a full frontal Swayambhu.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of drawbacks that Galleria CUC needs to address for the justice of the photographs.
All the photographs are of the same size (8”x12”), and perhaps some of them would be better if they were bigger in size. Similarly, the mattes and the frames are all uniform but do not necessarily compliment each photograph. Another issue is the reflection on the photographs, which takes away something from the pleasure of looking at them.
“Due to time and money constraints, we were unable to look into some of the details,” says Kirant and also adds, “We would like to have the walls painted in a different color, but this means that we would have to close the restaurant for a few days.” The veteran informs that they are looking into ways of improving the setup of the exhibits.
All the photographs are on sale for Rs 9,500 each. Proceeds will be divided among the artist, CUC and Momomagic.
“The advantage of photographs is that we can print as many as we want,” says Kirant. “For November, CUC will be doing a SAARC heritage photo exhibition and we’re also planning for a show that focuses on the upcoming Nepal Tourism year 2011.”
Still young at heart, Hari Bangsha Kirant recalls having to take note of minute details to take a picture with his manual camera. “Everything had to be studied beforehand. But now, one can take a picture, look at it immediately and decide to delete it or keep it,” he puts in. “Things are much easier and more convenient today.”
It is true that one does not have to spend hours in the darkroom or require much technical experience to take pictures. Nevertheless, creativity, patience and planning are still much needed assets to make an image a work of art: It is not just clicks on your Sony Cyber-shot.
- Names of the participants: Kushal Goyal, Prazwol Sijapati, Cheteize Tamang, Sagar Chitrakar, Yokko Yehang Kirant, Prajwal Bhattarai, Swapnil Acharya, Gaurav Dhwaj Khadka, and Hari Bangsha Kirant.
- Momomagic is open from 11 am to 7 pm. More information is available on www.cucweb.org.
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