Inaugural Kathmandu Photo Festival
Prawin Adhikari 2015
Blenkinsop’s perspective is that of extreme proximity: it insists upon a vital occupation of the moment, of the moods of the subjects and the society in which these images have been created. This series proves his capacity for being persistent in locating the explosive centre of the moment—and his extraordinary good fortune in finding the currents of local history.
A guerrilla amidst jungle foliage may be a pun, but a trio of erstwhile rebels being festooned and fed by many hands is a grave reminder of how much the corkscrew of Nepali history has turned. Change is perceptible in the patterns on the uniforms of the riot police, or in the ageing of the now-familiar faces of politicians. But, there is also stasis—the confrontation between the state and its dissenters continues through the years; there are the same flags, the same burning rage, a cycle of violence repeated. It is the same ovine march of the many and the same wile of the few. And on the margins is the incidental: a serene pair of sheep, for instance, or the gleam of a distant river, or the gaze of a butchered goat.
Curiosity and tenacity characterize Blenkinsop’s work. More than anything else there is the courage to lean closer in order to expose the ordinary in the improbable. To minutely study his photographs of Nepal is to be caught in a fractal, eddying view of the immediate past of the country: celebration, dissent, grit and grief are entwined here. A stupa swarmed with violators and victims, for instance, or the timidity on the face of an armed rebel. In Blenkinsop’s work, each detail appears at once accidental and meditated, perhaps an echo of the reality we inhabit, wrought and wrecked, tender and terrible.
A guerrilla amidst jungle foliage may be a pun, but a trio of erstwhile rebels being festooned and fed by many hands is a grave reminder of how much the corkscrew of Nepali history has turned. Change is perceptible in the patterns on the uniforms of the riot police, or in the ageing of the now-familiar faces of politicians. But, there is also stasis—the confrontation between the state and its dissenters continues through the years; there are the same flags, the same burning rage, a cycle of violence repeated. It is the same ovine march of the many and the same wile of the few. And on the margins is the incidental: a serene pair of sheep, for instance, or the gleam of a distant river, or the gaze of a butchered goat.
Curiosity and tenacity characterize Blenkinsop’s work. More than anything else there is the courage to lean closer in order to expose the ordinary in the improbable. To minutely study his photographs of Nepal is to be caught in a fractal, eddying view of the immediate past of the country: celebration, dissent, grit and grief are entwined here. A stupa swarmed with violators and victims, for instance, or the timidity on the face of an armed rebel. In Blenkinsop’s work, each detail appears at once accidental and meditated, perhaps an echo of the reality we inhabit, wrought and wrecked, tender and terrible.
