Kathmandu Art Gallery recently inaugurated ‘Imaging South Asia: Népal in the Making’, in Baber Mahal Revisited, Kathmandu.

The exhibition presents a focused selection of historical maps from the private collection of the Rajbhandari Family, tracing how Nepal and the Himalayan region were surveyed, interpreted, and gradually transformed into modern territorial form.

‘Imaging South Asia: Népal in the Making’ brings together maps produced primarily during the nineteenth century within colonial and imperial institutions, including those associated with the East India Company and later British administrative bodies in South Asia.

Created for military planning, revenue administration, and territorial governance, these maps reflect an expanding effort to render the Himalayan landscape legible from afar. Mountains, rivers, and passes appear not only as physical features, but as elements to be measured, classified, and fixed within systems of imperial knowledge.

“This exhibition invites viewers to encounter these maps not as static images, but as documents of transition, capturing the moment before a nation fully appeared on the world’s maps,” says Sangeeta Thapa, director of the Gallery.

Through techniques such as hill shading, hachuring, and the imposition of latitude and longitude grids, the maps demonstrate how knowledge of the Himalayas was constructed and standardised. The exhibition invites visitors to view maps as historical texts that helped shape political realities.

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Imaging South Asia: Népal in the Making

When: Until March 17

Where: Kathmandu Art Gallery, Baber Mahal Revisited, Kathmandu

Time: 11:00 am to 5:00 pm

Entry: Free