Sagarmatha Next presents: At the Tipping Point: Art and Ecology from the Rooftop of the World
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Framed by the towering Himalayas, this ecological exhibition underscores Nepal’s position as a “ground zero” for climate change. The urgency of the crisis is palpable—melting glaciers threaten global water supplies, erratic weather endangers agriculture, deforestation ravages biodiversity, and rising sea levels imperil coastal life. The extinction of species has upset the delicate balance of oceans, forests, and land, pushing ecosystems to the brink. Through thought-provoking artworks, the exhibition urges collective reflection on the shared consequences of human actions and the urgent need for sustainable stewardship to safeguard our planet.
Read the curator’s note on the exhibition here!
Each work in the exhibition functions as a node within a larger ecology of meaning and response. Whether through site-responsive installations, low-impact materials, with minimal carbon footprint, it performs an ecological ethic in both concept and form. It performs what theorist Andreas Boetzkes calls an “ethical ecology”[3]—where artistic form aligns with ecological consciousness, as a provocation: to listen differently, to see systemically, and to imagine otherwise asserting the critical role of art in cultivating planetary awareness and fostering modes of what Arturo Escobar calls “designs for the pluriverse”[4] alternative world-making practices grounded in relationality, reciprocity, and sustainability. Therefore, At the Tipping Point insists on the criticality of art as a medium for environmental thinking, insisting on the possibility of reworlding: of imagining new alignments between species, environments, and futures, as it strongly urges collective reflection on the shared consequences of human actions and the urgent need for sustainable stewardship to safeguard our planet.
[3] Boetzkes, Andreas. 2021. Plastic Capitalism: Contemporary Art and the Drive to Waste. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
[4] Escobar, Arturo. 2018. Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
On July 5, 2025, Taragaon Next collaborated with Feminist Book Club Kathmandu to read and discuss Fire on the Mountain by Anita Desai.
The book was read and discussed with a ecofeminist lens, with emphasis given to the environmental and feminist stances the characters in the book take and how that affects the narrative of the entire story.
Participants were also given a tour of the exhibition afterwards.
From understanding the history of terrariums, to foraging in Taragaon Gardens for materials to build terrariums, our participants had an engaging 4 hours where they learned about how an ecosystem is formed and how everything is interlinked on July 19, 2025.
Dr. Samundra Gurung provided an open platform for participants to learn, engage and create while Taragaon Next highlighted our exhibition: At the Tipping Point, to relate the workshop to the exhibition, and to the state of the world.
On August 2, 2025, Drum to the Sound of Nature, an experiential workshop invited participants to connect deeply with themselves and the natural world through rhythm, sound, and creativity. Guided by clinical music therapist and co-founder of Maitri Music Therapy Nepal, Shreeti Pradhan, participants will explore nature-inspired soundscapes and engage in intuitive music-making using both the body and found objects from nature at Taragaon Next.
From August 8 - August 10, a three-day workshop started from the history of printmaking in Nepal to finished products made by our participants, who ranged from seasoned printmakers to beginners. By learning the history, exploring the ongoing exhibition: At the Tipping Point, and being inspired by the space and conversations happening at Taragaon, the participants each created prints.
This workshop was facilitated by Sauraganga Darshandhari, an exhibiting artist for At the Tipping Point.
Urban Echoes: Sparrow Whistle Making Workshop is a participatory clay workshop inviting the public to engage with the fragile memory of Kathmandu’s house sparrows—small creatures struggling to make their voices heard in a city that no longer listens from August 23 - August 30.
Led by visual artist Samyukta Bhandari, participants will sculpt clay whistles inspired by sparrows, imprinting their own voices in delicate terracotta sculptures that echo an urgent question:
“What if we fought for their survival as fiercely as they do?”
This workshop extends Samyukta’s ceramic installation Echoes of Survival: The Sparrows of Kathmandu, translating themes of disappearance, adaptation, urban suffocation, and cohabitation into an intimate, tactile, and collective act of care and resistance.
Quizzes and a crossword was created to supplement the learning element of our exhibition. By encouraging passive ways to engage with the exhibition for different age groups, we were able to help visitors immerse themselves into the exhibits,
Dr. Lokhandwala is an art historian, curator, and founding director of Lakeeren Gallery, Mumbai. Her notable curatorial projects include Prussian Blue: A Serendipitous Color that Altered the Trajectory of Art (KNMA, 2023), The Archaeology of the Self: Archives, Anarchives and the Artist (2023 amongst others. Her exhibition Re-Worlded: Seventy Years of Investigating a Nation (2017) earned her the Curator of the Year Award by India Today. She has also curated After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India 1947/1997 at the Queens Museum (2015). Since 2019, she has lectured at the Art Institute of Chicago, teaching South Asian Art and Postcolonial Studies. With over 300 curated exhibitions, Dr. Lokhandwala writes extensively on globalization, feminism, and postcolonial studies
