NIRIN , BIENNALE OF SYDNEY 2020 , ARTREE NEPAL PROJECT - NOT LESS EXPENSIVE THAN GOLD

Not Less Expensive Than Gold, 2020

mixed-media installation. 

Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous support from Open Society Foundations .

This project is kindly supported by Kumudini Gurung , Julia Booth and Ali Newling .

The Imperial expansion and process of colonisation had an overpowering influence on non-European medicinal traditions and cultural practices across the world. In Nepal, the modern or allopathic system of medicine was introduced by the Christian missionaries in the 17th century. In the aftermath of the centuries of Western medical intervention and Nepal’s quest to adopt so-called ‘modernisation’, the older folk’s Indigenous, ethnic, communal and shamanistic medicinal and healing practices started to disintegrate and disappear, while derogatory terms such as ‘alternative medicine’ or ‘pseudoscience’ are now used to describe traditional practices.

Despite Nepal being a small landlocked country, it has tremendous geographic diversity. The land rises from as low as 59 metres to the highest point on earth – 8848 metres above sea level at the summit of Mount Everest. The physiographic zones and climatic, topographic and ecological variation across Nepal provide for a wide range of rich medicinal, aromatic plants. The herbs found in Nepal at an altitude of 3000 metres and above are considered rich in natural chemicals. Ironically, those medicinal plants, which people have been using for hundreds, if not thousands, of years have now become export goods, while presently 80-90 per cent of the drugs used by locals are imported. Increasingly, in most of the developing countries, basic needs like health, education and transportation are being systematically privatised and commercialised. Health services and medical education are unaccountably expensive. Only five percent of the population in Nepal can afford to pursue a Bachelor of Medicine or Surgery. In most rural areas, because of a lack of proper health service and hospitals, people have to travel long distances to the capital for even basic treatment.

Text & Images courtesy - Artree Nepal, Artists Subas Tamang , Lavkant Chaudhary , Mekh Limbu , Sheelasha Rajbhandari , Hit Man Gurung.

Project production team : Mekh Limbu, Subas Tamang, Sheelasha Rajbhandari, Lavkant Chaudhary, Hit Man Gurung, Binaya Rimal, Kala Limbu, Mithu Chaudhary, Aman Tuladhar. Special thankful to Gopal Kalapremi Shrestha for technical supports.