During the week Saturday 14th - Saturday 21st September, Lindberg-on-Sea Art Gallery has made the decision to take a massive stride up from the World Oceans to the remote districts of Humla and Dhading in Himalaya.
For a very exclusive event we will share our exhibition space with photographer Toby Maudsley and Föreningen för Gatubarn i Nepal with the aim of contributing to the important humanitarian work Föreningen för Gatubarn i Nepal does in helping girls and boys in Nepal to a better life.

At the exhibition fifteen photographs, shot by Toby Maudsley during his travels to some of the most remote districts in Nepal, are presented.
Through the camera lens of Maudsley we, as spectators, have the possibility to get to know Thamsek Lama (standing on her roof 4 300 meters above sea level, in front of the staggering views of Mount Sipal, 7 030 meters above sea level) and other residents of the remote mountain villages in the North Western district of Humla and North Central district of Dhading. People who live and work in one of nature’s most extreme climates.

Toby Maudsley holds a Masters degree from UAL, University of the Arts London, and today he works as a freelance photographer and artist. Maudsley’s area of focus is Postcolonialism, particularly within the boundaries of the former British colonial East. Maudsley works with archival reconstruction and installation and more recently has included his own photography:

“The work shown here is part of an ongoing documentation intended to juxtapose my own work with that of 19th century pioneering photographers who were contemporaneous with the dominant Eurocentric views of the world at a time when photography was just emerging as a science. Britain particularly, as a colonial power, was concerned with the subjugation of the East and the Himalaya and the attempt to contain the landscape within acceptable European norms. In the 19th century this meant the portrayal of the people and landscape in a picturesque form which denied their agency as opposed to the untamable and formidable sublime. It is the indigenous people and landscape in these photographs which here has agency.”

Read more about Toby Maudsley

The photographs:

Thamsek Lama
Dashain Festival Swing
Pon Dhakpa Lama with his Prayer Wheel
Borang Landscape, before the Storm
Flour Mill between Jhalang and Borang
Choezem Lama at her Window
Dolma Lama’s Daughter, persuaded into Traditional Dress by her Mother
Baigrong and Prekta Tamang
Boys Playing
Grasscutter
Old Lady
Ngudup Zangmo
The Chala Pass
Newar Woman and Tamang Man
Shahi Thakuri Women

The people in the photographs from the Humla district are mainly – in the higher altitude images – ethnic Tibetan and – from the lower reaches of the valley closer to Simikot Hindu – of the Thakuri subcaste. People in the photographs from the Dhading district are mainly from the Tamang and Newar castes.

Humla is situated high in the Himalaya, in the Karnali Zone, North Western Nepal, bordering the Tibetan Autonomous Region of the Peoples Republic of China.
It is considered one of the most remote and isolated regions in Nepal, reachable only by foot or small aircraft which irregularly land in the district headquarters of Simikot.
The average altitude is about 3 000 m and is the highest district in Nepal, with most villages lying at about 3 000 m – 5 000 m above sea level.

Dhading is one of the seventy-five districts of Nepal that lies in the Bagmati zone, province number three of five of the Central Development Region in Nepal, located in the North Central of Nepal – close to the Tibetan Autonomous Region of the Peoples Republic of China – with Dhading Besi as its district headquarters.
Although the 170 km long Prithvi highway between Kathmandu and Pokhara runs through the southern regions of Dhading, many villages in the district are cut off from the roads and thus highly inaccessible.

Humla and Dhading are two of the most underdeveloped regions in Nepal, with only one hospital and few higher secondary schools to serve the whole Humla district (ca 5 655 sq/km with a population of about 50 000 (2011)). Most villages have no access to electricity, communicative infrastructure (such as telephone, mobile service, internet), clean drinking water or proper health care. The climate is harsh, and the severe winters can leave parts of the districts snow-covered for up to four months of the year.

Föreningen för Gatubarn i Nepal was founded in 2010 by Eva Holmberg.
It is a nonprofit organisation, meaning that the whole sales revenue from a photograph will go to the children of Nepal, divided between the five districts within which the organisation is active.
In addition to orphanages lead by Föreningen för Gatubarn i Nepal, of which the orphanage for girls in Gokarna and the orphanage for small children in Kathmandu are two, the organisation also aids children living with a relative by financially supporting school tuition and healthcare, hands out bags with rice and lentils in the ghetto areas around Kathmandu, and helps young women to train into midwifes.
Midwifes makes out a relatively small occupational group in today’s Nepal, and close to 80% of all children in the country are born without medically trained personnel with the result that maternal mortality is high in Nepal.
Educating more midwifes could change these outcomes on a long-term, and is part of Föreningen för Gatubarn i Nepal’s aiding method; finding a way for people to be able to help and support themselves by providing education and not only providing strict monetary support.
Focus for Föreningen för Gatubarn i Nepal lies in short-term projects which for the families in Nepal means long-term effect by self support and in this way being able to provide a stable future for their children.

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