The Siddhartha Arts Foundation and the British Council Nepal have gotten together to present the 2nd Kathmandu International Art Festival Revisited, an exhibition of photographs and video paintings created during last year’s Kathmandu International Art Festival, KIAF 2012.

The exhibition was officially opened at the Patan Museum in Lalitpur on January 25, and the works will remain on exhibit till the end of the month. Brendan McSharry, director of the British Council, and Abhi Subedi, writer and KIAF 2012 advisor, jointly inaugurated the exhibit. Artists, art enthusiasts, critics and patrons were amongst the others present at the opening.

“Exhibitions such as this one provide a common platform for artists to work together—on social, economic and environmental issues—and encourage upcoming artists,” said Subedi as he spoke of the role events such as KIAF can play in a country like Nepal. “These events also have a positive impact on institutions related to art.”

The works on exhibit represent a facet of KIAF 2012 in that they are artworks created under the curatorship of Gaynor O’Flynn, the independent British music, film, performance and installation artist, who was part of the festival. The works are an outcome of KIAF 2012’s ‘British Council Workshop’ and will include an image of KORA—the unique art installation O’Flynn created along with Nick Rothwell, Anna Tully, and Natalia Komis at the Bouddhanath stupa—a soundscape of voices in English and Tibetan as well as a visual display to ponder upon.

“Our installation did not simply aim to be a thing of beauty. The idea was to get people thinking about the environment, about social and economic issues,” said the artist as she spoke at the opening of the exhibition. All the photographs and video paintings that are currently being showcased speak about local cultures and rituals as well as about social and other environment issues.

KIAF 2012 was an art festival of immense proportions. With its theme Earth|Body|Mind, a concept that encompasses the whole of nature and well as human nature in and by itself, the event helped the discourse on global ecology, rising temperatures and climate change. Around 98 artists from 31 countries, including 22 artists from Nepal, showcased their works at different venues scattered around the Kathmandu Valley during the festival.

The opening of the 2nd Kathmandu International Art Festival Revisited also marked the launch of a book on KIAF 2012, specifically the various workshops that took place across the country over the one-month period (November 25-December 1, 2013). A documentary film related to the same topic was also screened at the January 25 event.