Lavkant Chaudhary’s “बटिया हेरटि रहना आँखी...” Batiya Herati Rahana Ankhi (Waiting for lost souls…) is a terracotta installation that eloquently narrates the oppressed history of the Tharu Indigenous people. During the ten-year conflict (1996 to 2006) in Nepal, the Tharu community bore the brunt of state-sponsored violence. Tharu individuals were often subject to suspicion merely based on their ethnicity, leading to interrogations, physical abuse and forcible arrests. Instances of disappearances and killings were also frequent.

These works are based on Lavkant’s recent commision for an on-site monument commemorating civilians subject to enforced disappearances in Bardiya District, Nepal — an area that witnessed disproportionate levels of violence during the war. The installation is an attempt to contextualise trauma and simultaneously acknowledge pain, while questioning the role of justice in such periods of violence.

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