Photo Essays
2 MIN READ
Where there were walls, there are no walls.
Home is something that excites me on a different level. The idea of a space of a person and the energy they have within a place is worth exploring. The reason for people to feel the best at their homes is because they have a safe place to reside. The reality of losing one's place is so strong that it becomes difficult to accept and embrace the present. There is a sense of fleeting uneasiness when I think about destruction, changes and most importantly, losing something. "Every day was poetry" is my expression of showing layers of presence that is precious and important in a place that is destroyed, deserted and lonely. This is my aim to present my inner feelings in combination with those who owned that space. I am questioning the existence of an object or a feeling that still holds its essence in the so called leftovers. These homes have their outer shell removed and the insides still there, intact. The most I can do by looking at it is to appreciate whatever remains and feel this space in ways I can feel my own.
The place I went to was Dali and this story is about the houses near one of the famous lakes in Dali called the "Erhai" lake. The government of China is destroying the houses that were spread a hundred and forty kilometers around the lake. Because of the pollution in the lake, the government wants the houses to be removed. Since this rule was never applied before, all of the houses were on the lake itself. This is the reason why most of them had to lose their houses and businesses.
I started with one house to just see what is left and I couldn't stop doing this so I walked all around the lake to get an understanding of what's happening. The story is more about the place and the reality that still exists in contrast. The name "Everyday was poetry" was handwritten on one of the houses I visited.
"Every day was Poetry" was produced during the International Storytelling Workshop in Kunming, China, in March 2019. The workshop is a collaboration between Photo Circle -Nepal, Pathshala South Asian Media Institute- Bangladesh, Oslo Metropolitan University-Norway and Mino Art Center- China.
Shradha Devkota Shradha Devkota is a visual artist based in Kathmandu, Nepal. She is a fine arts graduate from Kathmandu University School of Arts. Besides capturing stories through her lens, she also illustrates and paints.
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They stole our ghats. They stole our boats. They stole our rivers and our fish. Crushers in our rivers, they even stole the lands of our ancestors.
