Omakshi Pandey

Treasurable Fragments

As artists, we tell stories, and through photography, I tell the story of my life and the type of culture that I come from. I grew up in Nepal in the capital city of Kathmandu and spent most of my life there, even though I did study abroad for a couple of years. This, however, never separated me from my Nepali culture, and I've always been grounded in my roots. Family continuously plays a considerable role in my life. This type of social structure has shaped me into the person that I am today. In my series, Treasurable Fragments, I am combining archival family photographs along with my documentary style photography and presenting the people of my country as they experience their everyday lives, whether it be celebrating a festival in their cultural wear or selling vegetables on the side of the street. My main focus is to capture the authentic moments of their daily existence, along with historical religious sites that portray the different types of religions that coexist in harmony in my country. 

My family snapshots are incorporated into my thesis, Treasurable Fragments as a way to remember the past. Another part of my thesis project deals with collaging images from my childhood by cutting out precious moments and combining them with other aspects of my life that I have documented, which to me, represents having control of time but also manipulating and playing with it. The use of organic materials such as cherry blossoms along with my family snapshots symbolizes that time is forever changing, and nothing is ever constant.