Bhaktapur, Nepal
Finish-Touched
Artist: Jolanta Lapiak.
Installation: drawings; 5:25 minute video.
Bkahtapur, Nepal; Calgary, Canada, 2004.
The objective of the "Finish-Touched" work is threefold:

1) The "finish-touched" in this title is visual thinking in American Sign Language, which means, "I have been there." This work implies how a tourist travels to "landmark" (pun intended) or "touch" the sites and pose for a picture. It suggests a judgment between the value of foreground and background.

2) It demonstrates a contrast between an experience of observing-drawing in a slow-paced living museum as a resident and an instant moment with superficial sensations in a photographing-looking akin to a similar effect of the fast-paced information age. It also looks at the idea of absence/presence in relation to speed and space.

3) It contrasts between the aura of Bhaktapur, known as the living museum, and an alienation of objects in a museum. This work reconsiders a relationship between: sacred and secular social rituals; activity and passivity; spectacle and performance; living art/environment and virtuality.

bhaktapur
Nyatapola


Durbar Square


Durbar Temple


Narayan Temple


Hanumat Ghat


Siddhilakshmi