Mark Bechtel
Mark is an Assistant Professor of Product Design at Parsons School of Design in New York. For his
sabbatical, he was seeking residency opportunities outside the United States to focus on resuming his art
practice in a foreign context. He has known Ashmina (the founder of NexUs/LASANAA) since graduate school at Columbia University and reconnected in recent years. Here’s a short interview with Mark.
What do you think of LASANAA @ NexUs Culture Nepal as an art space?
“I do not actually think of Lasanaa as an art space, but more so as one of Ashmina’s artworks. From a distance, I was unclear about where Lasanaa was, but now I understand that it is placeless in a sense. From my point of view, the Nexus Culture Café happens to be the place where Lasanaa occurs, but it is
the programming, events, Ashmina’s direction, and participation of all the people that come to participate, work, and volunteer that constitutes what Lasanaa is.”
Could you briefly tell us about your project?
“As a foreigner, and we are so easily identifiable here unlike a place like New York, I arrived with little to no idea of what I could do here in a month. Making an exhibition within what I consider to be the artwork of another artist (Lasanaa) is also a remarkably different context than commercial or non-profit galleries that typically aspire to present themselves as neutral spaces separate from the artwork, although we have known at least since the sixties this isn’t really true.
Nearly 12 years ago I started teaching full time in the BFA Product Design program at Parsons. At that
time, I was greatly disillusioned with the conditions of the art market and recognized that I could
continue making work if it was responsive to its own condition, but I was stuck about how to go about
doing that. I’d also grown weary of the limits of more typical and sometimes facile art discourses on the
subject. A perfect example of the kind of limits I’m referring to is Walter Benjamin’s long ago and overly
exhausted critique of mechanical reproduction in Art. It continues being rehearsed by some artists,
critics, and so on even today despite how much our conditions and the world has changed.
As an artist that had been making sculpture, installations, and some performances, entering a Product
Design program that centers on commodities, production, and relationships between people through
objects, their usage, and production made a great deal of sense to me. I wanted to join, learn, and
contribute to another disciplinary discourse and the Product Design program at Parsons in particular,
under Tony Whitfield’s leadership then, places a strong emphasis on social justice, craft, responsibility in
design decisions for environment and labor, and maintains a strong focus on human need. It was a
perfect opportunity for me. I have come here to implement ideas I’ve been exploring during the last
twelve years informed through what I’ve learned myself as a design educator and former craftsman.”
Feedback on LASANAA/ NexUS:
“Lasanaa, as an idea, is a fragile thing. It continues only through the commitment, engagement, and
energy that people bring to it. Some people will not understand this and they will come only to take for
themselves. This is a place for mutual exchange. It will exist for as long as people want that. There is no
place that exists like this in New York other than passing moments in the creation of events or rented
spaces that are quickly subsumed under the pressures of a hyper expensive real estate market. Capital
dominates living in New York more than all the energy that people bring to it. That situation is even
clearer to me now while living temporarily outside it here in Nepal.”
Gareth Prew
Gareth Prew is a 25 year old photographer who is currently an artist in residence at NexUs Culture Nepal. Prew’s practice is currently focused on mental health. His current work is to show his audience how it feels to deal with anxiety every day. Here is a short interview with Gareth which gives us an insight of him.
What brought you to Nepal?
“After graduating from university (Swansea College of Art, University of Wales Trinity Saint David) I was looking on a well known artist opportunity website, Axisweb and discovered an artist residency in Nepal with Lasanaa/NexUs Culture Nepal and with not having a job or any work lined up took the opportunity and came to Nepal.”
What do you think of LASANAA @ NexUs Culture Nepal as an art space?
“NexUs Culture as an art space is a friendly café with co-working style workspace that has a relaxed and an environment that’s easy to work in.”
Could you briefly tell us what your project is about?
“The project that I have been working on here in Nepal during my residency at NexUs and with Lasanaa is based around trying to create conversation about mental health issues that are not openly talked about in both Eastern and Western cultures. To start conversation I have tried to convey my emotions and how my anxiety and depression effect how i see and communicate with the environment I’m surrounded by at the time the photograph/video is taken.”
What will you be presenting during the exhibition?
“As a photo-artist I tend to cross mediums of still photography with moving image (video) to convey the feelings within my work, the exhibition that will be happening at NexUs Culture Nepal on Friday 23rd February will be no different in that sense and will have a mixture of still photography and moving image to show how Nepal has affected my mental health.”
How has your stay at LASANAA/ NexUs been so far?
“NexUs Culture Nepal is a friendly, community art space with Westerners and Nepalis integrating through the programmes that are put on by the volunteers that help sustain NexUs as a space. Through my time staying at NexUs I have come to make a lot of friends that I see as being lifelong friendships, and that have helped make my stay in Nepal so far really enjoyable.”
Tang Yan
Tang is from Taiwan study and studied at Taipei National University of the Arts. She came to NexUs/LASANAA as a Resident Artist. Here’s a short interview with Tang.
What brought you to Nepal?
-A school project: “Action Study in International Art Networks – Flaneur Project”
How did you come to know about LASANAA/ Nexus?
– I decided to start a backpacking travel in Nepal because Professor Chi Fang Chao (Pre-Director of International Exchange Center) introduced me about LASANAA. Then, I found your website and became very interested in it.
What do you think of LASANAA @ NexUs Culture Nepal as an art space?
– I think LASANAA @ NexUs is a place to rest. Most of the time we keep producing artwork for different exhibitions or projects. In LASANAA @ NexUs, I can do whatever I want without any purpose.
Could you briefly tell us about your project?
– I participated in a course last semester called “Action Study in International Art Networks – Flaneur Project” which encouraged students to arrange their own project and exchange to different countries for at least 14 days. Here’s a link to her project:
http://- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XP3JWchAWQ2mRwpwT66eu_8zONEtapPG
How has your time in LASANAA/ NexUs impacted your life?
– I think it gave the chance to think differently, because most of the time our judgments are only based on a narrowly focused vision of the world. Be honest, I’m not sure how the experience in Nepal impacted my life. Maybe the change is invisible.
Hemo Sipuli
Henmo is one of the artists who worked with Ashmina in the Rebuilding Recapturing project. Here is a short interview with him.
