Kathmandu Various innovative projects, photographs as well as interactive installations make a part of the fourth edition of Yantra — an annual festival where art meets science and technology. With the theme of ‘adaptation’, the festival, that started on December 23 at Nepal Art Council, Babarmahal, has been divided into different categories — interactive art exhibition, research and artworks on ‘Objects of Significance’, technology in art, children’s interactive art, and robotics. On the lobby of first floor of the gallery, you can see an innovative project ‘Light of Hope’— a solar-powered lighting and mobile charging station developed by Robotics Association of Nepal (RAN) in collaboration with Ghampower Nepal—Robotics section. Adjacent to it are the display of winning robots of National Robotics Competition 2015. The project ‘Light of Hope’ was developed to solve the problem of people who were facing difficulties to charge their personal devices — cell phone, radio, et cetera after the earthquake and its aftershocks. Explaining about the project, Nischal Oli, one of the curators of the exhibition shared, “RAN found that people from Nuwakot were walking 10 hours a day to and from the district headquarters just to charge their devices — they would get to charge for two hours only. Now RAN has distributed 204 units of charging station in Jiling VDC and other places as well.” The project well captures the theme ‘adaptation’ of Yantra 4.0. Meanwhile, black and white photographs of people wearing different types of glasses are on display on the walls before you enter the Bagmati Hall situated on the top floor of the gallery. The photographs are from Nepal Picture Library. As you enter the Bagmati Hall, you will see four interactive installations — Touch-Me-Not, Irritating Machine, Peace Pond and Sarangi— which are the collaborative effort of artists, engineers and designers. On December 26, father-daughter duo Dambar and Ashmi Batas were enjoying and playing with the ‘Sarangi’ by artists Mekh Limbu, Subhash Tamang and Shreejana Rajbahak along with engineer Binod Pangeni. In this interactive installation, you can see a traditional Nepali musical instrument sarangi. You can play this ‘digital’ instrument on the spot. Moreover, a written instruction tells you the way to play this digital sarangi along with sharing information about this instrument. “I am really enjoying the exhibition and this exhibition is full of creativity and different from other kinds of art exhibitions that I have been to,” shared Ashmi. A mutli-player arcade ‘Homework: The Game’ created by three young programmers aged 13 and 14 years old— Aarogya Rijal, Abhinav Khemka, and Shreyan Parajuli, is another attraction of the event. The huge installation of shoes — created by artists Binita Buddhacharya and Sharmila Shrestha — displayed on the topmost part of the gallery will also definitely amaze you. Though this year’s interactive installation works are less in number compared to last year, the exhibition is definitely going to impress you with its innovation and in-depth research. The exhibition organised by Siddhartha Arts Foundation’s Education Initiative (SAFEI), Karkhana, and RAN continues till January 5.