Much water has trickled under bridge since Saran Tandukar played under the Tukucha Bridge at Bhrikutimandap as a kid. Once boasting ample open land for the kids in the neighbourhood to play in, the recent commercial boom in the Putalisadak area had left the Bhrikuti Tole Sudhar Youth Club with little more than a dingy, dark room under the bridge as the only viable space for community gatherings. The room—furnished with a dusty divan, a few working desks, a wooden podium and ample cobwebs—had served as a meeting hall for the club for several years. But given the room’s sorry, decrepit state and the stench of the Tukucha, club meetings weren’t necessarily a priority in the community.

In April this year, Saran and a group of artists, funded by the Danish organisation CKU, set about on a daunting mission to transform the dingy room into a vibrant space for the community. Saran, a Putalisadak native, had talked to Rupak Tandukar, a representative of the youth club, who was overjoyed to host the artists as they sought to bring a much-needed “twist” (as Rupak put it) to the room. Rupak and his fellow club members had worked hard to construct the room but apart from a brief Tukucha cleaning programme, which did see some short-term success, they had failed to mobilise the community like they had originally wanted to.

Dubbed Project Sanghu, Nepali for bridge, the collaboration’s primary goal was to convert the room into a children-friendly area where people from the neighbouring community could come together. During the first phase, the artists up-cycled material already available in the space and procured scrap to convert into in to an installation. The artists also found a scrapped play-slide, repainted it, and instaled it in the room itself.

As the team worked inside the room, they also found some time to step out to create simple sculptures out of bamboo dokos from the vegetable market nearby. While there was nothing elaborate or overtly aesthetical about the two repurposed artworks, the team sought to prod on the community to see everyday material with a fresh pair of eyes.

The second phase, that involved community engagement sessions, featured an informal art workshop exclusively for the neighbourhood children. Spearheaded by Binita Buddhacharya, the workshop involved 15 children who were led through several art props—drawings and paintings. Although a one-day event, the workshop succeeded at what it set out to do: to make the community realise the importance of engaging children in stimulating creative activities and fostering group work. The children also helped paint parts of the space themselves. 

Now, the once dingy room sees a host of children who come to play there everyday. The children are

followed into the room by their guardians which has also increased the footfall. The children, who have little space around the vicinity to play, now have a community space that they can claim ownership of: they helped create the space.

The club members are equally energised—their goal of proper community engagement reinvigorated once more. One community member’s desire to see a community library set up in the space has already begun to materialise. Project Sanghu now boasts 40 children books, and that number is growing by the day.

But more importantly, residents of the Putalisadak area now have a vibrant communal space that they can congregate in. As they watch their children take turn on the slide, the guardians are already making plans for the different ways they can now use the space. The project has brought them closer as a community and challenged them to own the public spaces in the neighbourhood. There are already are plans in the works to restart the Tukucha clean-up project. “This has been a great experience not just for the community but also for us, the artists involved,” says Saran Tandukar, “It has shown us that when a community is persistent in its efforts, tiny steps eventually amount to giant strides. If before upon hearing the word Tukucha I visualised a dirty river and the foul stench, I now visualise the vibrant Project Sanghu. That alone makes it all worth it.”