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.

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.