NEPAL/INDIA

stealing earth, 2018 - ongoing.

Installation comprising video, digital photographs, digital collage, ink on cotton paper, mixed media, variable dimensions.

Chitwan National Park the first protected area in Nepal, was established in 1973 after having been a popular destination for hunting and trade amongst Nepal's royalty and the British colonists. For its indigenous residents, the Bote, Majhi, Musahar, Tharu, Kumal and Chepang, the forest is home, stealing earth brings together works that address how the rhetoric of conservation is used to enclose land, forest and water for the wealthy and powerful, while disenfranchising communities that have shared a symbiotic relationship with these ecologies for centuries. The series of composites, we exist, regards children from indigenous communities and their connection with land and water. Born to army personnel who have abandoned them, these children cannot acquire citizenship certificates as the 2015 constitution still discriminates against single mothers and renders them stateless without the acknowledgement of paternity, camouflage speaks to the militarization of the protected areas and its ongoing expansion, drawing parallels with Mikania micrantha, a tropical plant native to the South and Central Americas, that has been gradually smothering the park since the 1990's.