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| Kathmandu, Thursday May 09, 2002 Baishakh 26, 2059. |
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Photos
of Kathmandu Valley on show
Post Report
KATHMANDU, May
8:"When people forget, photographs will remind them", was once said by a
renowned scholar. Keeping this in mind, the rapidly changing face of the Kathmandu Valley
has been captured in photographs and framed so that the public will be able to travel
through time and recall its appearance then and now.
Photographs taken
around the Kathmandu Valley before and after are being exhibited at the Nasal Chowk and
will conclude on May 14. "The Kathmandu Valley- Then and Now" photo exhibition,
marks the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)
International Safeguarding Campaign from 1977 to 2001.
The exhibition depicts
photographs capturing not only historically important architectural monuments like temples
and palaces, but also shows private houses, community-owned buildings, public baths,
places and old roads. They demonstrate the development of the protection and restoration
of cultural monuments and sites in the Kathmandu Valley over the last decades and their
condition before and afterwards.
Several of these
photographs depict the condition of some monuments before, which are also very rare
photographic evidences, shown for the first time. Some of them are over hundred years old,
photographed by the Nepalese people, to whose descendants the exhibition has been
dedicated.
Old photographs have
made scientific conservation and restoration of the past monuments and buildings possible
in some ways. Furthermore, these photographs illustrate the cultural evolution and
transformation that have taken place in the Kathmandu Valley.
"The rich cultural
heritage of Nepal have been threatened by profit-oriented economic activities," Jim
Cambell, a frequent visitor to Nepal for the past thirty years said during his visit to
the exhibition.
"The cultural
heritage of Nepal is irreplaceable and therefore it is the responsibility of the people
here to preserve it so that the coming generations will be able to look back and
appreciate their heritage," Cambell added.
"Kathmandu has
changed, that we cannot deny," said Rohit Sharma, a visitor, adding, "This
exhibition brings back the memories of Kathmandu that I have long forgotten."
"The pictures have
enabled me to view the Kathmandu that existed before I was born," said Sameer Khadka,
adding, "The before and after pictures really give one a view of the rapidly changing
Kathmandu Valley."
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