Masiniya Matawali

2021 - Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

103 x 55 cm

Subas Tamang

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Masiniya Matawali by Subas Tamang is an etching and aquatint print based on photographs taken by German photographer Volkmar Wentzel in 1949. Wentzel’s original color photographs document the transportation of a Mercedes Benz, carried on a wood armature by sixty porters, over a rocky trail from Bhimphedi to Kathmandu in Nepal. At the time of Wentzel’s photographs, paved roads in Nepal only existed within the Kathmandu Valley and cars had to be carried into the city from the surrounding hills on foot. Wentzel’s images have been reinterpreted by Subas to call attention to the oppression of the Tamang people by Nepal’s ruling class. Cars were imported for their lavish lifestyles, but little regard was given to common Nepalis or access to basic necessities for their health and well-being. Generations of Indigenous people paid the price for this opulence, the impacts of which are still felt to this day in Nepal. Subas’s work can also be read as performance—as an action embodying the violence of history. This refigured artwork by Subas is an attempt to understand, rediscover, and reinterpret Tamang history.

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Part of the Indigenous Tamsaling community in Nepal, Subas Tamang comes from a family of traditional stone carvers. Subas often incorporates carving, engraving, as well as various printmaking techniques into his art practice. Much of Tamsaling history is based primarily on oral narrative traditions. Responding to the lack of documentation in his community’s historical legacy, Subas seeks to archive the cultural and social fabrics of his and other communities through art. Tamang is also a member of Artree, an artist collective formed in 2013 with Sheelasha Rajbhandari, Hit Man Gurung, Mekh Limbu, and Lavkant Chaudhary who come from a range of Indigenous communities of Nepal. ??Artree practices art collectively with the belief that it has deep roots in social practice. The mainstream narrative of Nepal and its surrounding region has historically excluded the stories and experiences of numerous disenfranchised Indigenous communities. Artree’s collective and individual practices draw attention to these dogmatic social hierarchies through installations, exhibitions, workshops and events.

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Colors:

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• class.n.03
• oppression.n.02
• wealth.n.01
• consumerism.n.01
• history.n.01