I love this photo (taken by Bandana!) and our office.
Mural Artist, Priscila De Carvalho, working her magic
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- The only way is up
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- She is loving it up there
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- The Nepali way of doing things
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- Priscila De Carvalho
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- Into the sunset
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- The house owner, Niranjan Dai getting some info
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- Keeping the artist safe
Kolor Kathmandu
Sattya is setting out to color the streets of Kathmandu and bring it to life. We want to transform Kathmandu into a colorful open gallery space, and make Kathmandu a place with art for the people, by the people.
Kolor Kathmandu, aims to foster collaboration among artists and community
and splash colors of cultural identity and reflection in the streets.This project aims to produce 75 murals representing 75 districts within Kathmandu,within a year.
For more information
Chakraby at Sattya
It was an amazing experience working with Chakraby. Chakraby’s mission is through resourcefulness to bring the Kathmandu Cycle City 2020 campaign up into the next gear by encouraging more people to ride bicycles and thereby promote environment sustainability.
Sattya collaborated with Chakraby and worked at Hariyo Chowk Community day to create mud bricks and also got a chance to learn green concepts such as sustainable farming and vertical gardening. Sattya also organized two screenings ‘Exit Through The Giftshop’ and ‘Garbage Dreams’ followed by discussions at Sattya and British Council respectively.
Followed by the Docu-Talk was the Chakraby Bicycles distribution . The main aim of giving out bikes was to to promote a greener and honk free Kathmandu and also to take the KCC 2020 campaign to the next level. Sattya being a DIY, eco-friendly, plastic free, bicycle lovers organisation are more than happy to collaborate with Chakraby and we wish them all the best.
Way to Hariyo Chowk!
Find your way to Hariyo Chowk!
English Map:
Nepali Map
Hariyo Chowk is up and thriving with tons of activites going on! Do drop by to check our progress and take part in the amazing workshops being held there this month!
For more info:
Amazing Sattya !
when i attended high school, i did not have any thing as exciting as Sattya. it would either be devoting yourself to some orphanage for completing your community work hours or taking tuitions for the SAT. Had Sattya existed back then, I would have been more than happy to join it then. I think it is an excellent opportunity for students to be in mainly because you will be tapped into this creative network of people from diverse backgrounds, personalities, culture and ideas. For college students, i think it is a great place to break that monotonous life of college and tune into the kind of stuff that you love doing or are inspired by and would love to work upon. Personally, I love hanging out at Sattya. One moment you are brainstorming about a mural project and the very next second, you’re down at your community workspace garden and planting seeds and building a greenhouse. How cool is that?
For those who think Sattya is only about media and arts, I say there’s more to it than just that. You learn while you’re working. Be it cleaning your dishes or emptying the trash can, you’re basically following the core ethics of the DIY culture. You learn by doing and that’s exactly what Sattya teaches you. It teaches you to think differently, develop activism, get your creative juices flowing, it teaches you about art and the freedom that it gives you. You can be unconventional and a non conformist but you still manage to write that annual report and get the job done on time. It teaches you to balance things, urges you to change things and most importantly, shakes you and makes you take a step to make that change happen- again following our another core principle – Start where you Stand.
There is always something or the other happening at Sattya. We have a collection of exclusive documentaries from whom we have received permissions to screen- both national and international. We also have a Docu-talk where we discuss about the documentary and give our opinions and feedback. We have a whole library full of books on photography, DIY, graphic design, stencil making, street art, documentary making, storytelling, writing, activism and so much more. Trust me, you won’t be finding these awesome books around libraries in here. Workshops are another big part of Sattya. Facilitators from all around the world come to Sattya to do the workshop. Right now because of little exposure, we are only able to grab a limited number of people but through the college representative system, we want all the students around the valley to be informed about the workshop and get a chance to take part in the workshops and be taught by international expertise. We have had workshops on photography, video art, documentary making, street art, stencil making, screen printing and so much more and facilitators as far from Egypt and the US have come all the way to make these workshops successful.
Sattya is a hub for creative, vibrant, enthusiastic people and here, you will be meeting all these new people, getting informed about the happenings around Kathmandu, or brainstorming ideas for a possible project. We often get out and get our hands dirty, clean up the space infront of Sattya with our neighbors, do some street art. It is so much fun. Just last month, we had an Artists in the city project where we did some wheatpasting on the walls of Jhocchen , Basantapur. Later, we showed a documentary on the streets where we had so many people and it became a huge success- that to me is an achievement, and just to be a part of that amazing community, feels great. Hariyo Chowk, one of our projects on making kathmandu a green public space and promoting urban gardening culture and sustainability is just stimulating. When you get bored with the mental work, you just go down and just water some plants or shuffle the compost, it is therapeutic. And I do not get to learn this stuff in college. What i read in books comes to life here at Sattya.
Perk is one thing but there is a lot more than recommendations and discounts that you get to learn at Sattya. From mentors who guide you with every small task like making salads or writing a proposal for a grant or fixing your aperture, you will get more than what you think you will get at Sattya, atleast I did.
Start Where You Stand
Last week, Sattya was in Maruhiti, just by Kathmandu Durbar Square, painting a wall and wheatpasting pictures as part of Artist in The City, an event organized by IMAP. We were trying to inspire people to start where they stand.
The idea behind “Start Where You Stand” is that we all have something we can do to bring about the changes we want to see, however small. For example, there are so many problems in Kathmandu that it can get overwhelming and we wind up doing nothing at all. The “Start Where You Stand” campaign brings the problems of a city (or a county, or a community, or the world, for that matter) down to a manageable size.
All of us have the capacity to make small changes in exactly the place we are, whether it is in our neighborhoods, ours families, our homes, or even just within ourselves and our actions on a daily basis. This campaign, and this art installation in particular, was born out of the desire to get people start thinking about just that. By taking the time to think about and name the issues we would like to change, we are already taking the first step to finding a solution. Then by thinking about a possible way to better the situation on our own- without the help of government or lots of funds- we pinpoint an action we can take.
Whether the action is taken or not is another thing, but the idea is now planted in our minds. And finally, by having our picture taken and pasting it ourselves on a wall with our idea for change- among a sea of other faces- is inspiring.
The impact of such an installation to be emphasizing the idea that all of us have the capacity to bring about changes in our lives and our worlds. Through this participatory street art project, this concept is planted into the minds of the people participating, as well as into those who pass by the wall. Sometimes what we see one day in passing can stick in our minds and days, weeks, months or even years later show up to be influential.
Of course, many people will not take the actions the they said they could take and many people will pass by the wall without looking at it. But out of all those people, perhaps a handful will thinking further and be inspired to actively bring about the changes they want to see.
Photos by Sangrachana Chamling.
The Dogs of Sattya
If you’ve been to Sattya, you’ve definitely encountered the Sattya dogs. They can be a huge pain sometimes- we constantly have to get them out of the office or the screening room (they have been trained to respond to clapping and that works pretty well most times). Dorje had a bit of a biting problem for a short while there. Sometimes they bark so loud you can’t hear the film. Most days they totally destroy anything they can and knock over the trash cans. They constantly get themselves covered in ticks, cuts, and paint. Howling. Fighting. Whining. Hmm, I guess I could go on and on.
But there are times were when these four dogs are a perfect excuse to step away from a computer and play outside. Turns out Sattya is not the only place that thinks having dogs around the office is not a terrible idea. Turns out Wired magazine thinks it is a decent idea too: “On any given day, there will be at least a couple dogs, and sometimes a dozen or more, in the Wired office. This is a great perk for dog owners and dogophilic colleagues alike, for sure. But it turns out that allowing best friends to come to work also benefits our employers.” And the management seems to think its a great idea.
“Take note bosses: Allowing dogs in the workplace may be the cheapest way to get more from your employees. Even dogless workers can benefit from the presence of a colleague’s pooch in the office.”
In this post, Wired even has a whole photo gallery of the dogs employees have brought with them to work.
So I thought I’d put up a Sattya gallery too. Meet the Sattya dogs- Kanchi, Punx, Dorje, and Tripod:
Photos by Kate Walton, Santosh Panday, and me.
Sattya @ Pokhara
A video from last night’s Film + Music In the Streets. Ayush Shresha is a singer/song writer from Pokhara who is based in Bombay and writes his own original music. We screened There Once Was an Island in the street, and followed up with his performance. More photos and videos to come!
Screening @ KU Arts
Screening a doc at Kathmandu University Arts Campus today, April 25.
