Part of POA Opening Studio: Contemporary Indigeneity

Kaiten — Mangdem’ma: Invocations on history and healing — Talk by Subas Tamang and Mekh Limbu

How do Indigenous communities navigate the intertwined landscapes of history, trauma and cultural loss? This session reflects on artistic practices that transform memory into resistance from the tactile impressions of woodblock prints, to the evocative power of oral traditions, and the layered narratives of textiles and moving images. Per°Form Fellows, Subas Tamang and Mekh Limbu, reclaim histories obscured by colonisation, displacement and forced labor, tracing the fractures left by the erosion of cultural ties. Grounded in ancestral knowledge, they engage intergenerational memory and spiritual practices, creating spaces where healing and resistance converge. These defiant acts challenge the persistent weight of control, surveillance and disenfranchisement. The discussion also highlights the artists' ongoing advocacy for Indigenous territorial rights in the face of disruptive "development” projects that undermine ecological and spiritual balance.

Subas Tamang is a descendant of traditional stone carvers from the Tamang Indigenous community of Nepal. His artistic practice seeks to reframe Tamang history by challenging the dominant narratives of the past. Bureaucratic, ethnographic, and colonial sources often marginalise the agency of Tamang people while perpetuating traumatic and dehumanising accounts. His works deconstruct and repurpose archives concerning the state's exploitation of Tamang lives and labor within the context of the fraught relationship between his community and the evolving Nepali state since the 18th century. By drawing upon oral histories, vernacular materials, and traditional techniques such as slate carving, engraving, and printmaking, he presents an alternate historiography of his community that draws upon ancestral knowledge systems.

Mekh Limbu is a Kathmandu-based interdisciplinary artist originally from Dhankuta. Coming from the indigenous Limbu community, his work often addressed the systematic suppression of indigenous identity within contemporary politics. He also uses his art as a bridge to communicate between older and newer generations concerning language, ritual, and history. Limbu’s practice draws from archival texts, images, videos, and audios in order to subvert conventional representations of indigenous peoples. His works also document the ramifications of Nepal’s labour migration industry on his family, underscoring the estrangement of relationships and the breakdown of indigenous societies that has unfortunately become common for many Nepali households.

Images courtesy of Subas Tamang and Mekh Limbu.