Photograph © Bunu Dhungana
Photograph © Bunu Dhungana
Photograph © Bunu Dhungana
Photograph © Bunu Dhungana
Photograph © Bunu Dhungana
Photograph © Bunu Dhungana
Photograph © Bunu Dhungana
Photograph © Bunu Dhungana
Photograph © Bunu Dhungana
The color red is significant in a Nepali woman's life: it indicates marital status, symbolizes auspiciousness, sexuality, fertility, and life. Another color significant to women is white, employed to signify a woman's purity, vulnerability, and fragility as the unspoiled bearer of patriarchal honor.
A Nepali woman's experience of life is shaped by patriarchy. The need to control a woman is ingrained in the Nepali psyche. Nonconformity comes at a cost: any defiance of norms raises questions, suspicion, concern, and ridicule - some visible, others silent and invisible. I am made aware regularly that I keep crossing many such boundaries. Given the psychological push and pull, I struggle to be the woman I want to be: fearless and standing by my choices.
My work attempts to explore my sense of self in relation to society by saying things I'm not supposed to say, by making visible what is meant to stay out of sight. My project, Confrontations, also explores my relationship with my mother and is an ongoing work.
20 November
