New Baneshwar, known for Kathmandu’s busiest traffic junctions, is no longer defined only by the sound of horns and rushing vehicles. It also carries the memory of a day when a movement altered the country’s political course.

A year has passed since September 8, 2025.

The voices that had been humming for years grew louder that day. A year later, the government has changed, and many of those voices continue to echo.

Art became one of the ways those voices found expression.

What could not be said directly was said in verse, colour, sound and in performances. Photographs, paintings, music, poetry and theatre created a space to document, process and remember the movement.

‘Yaad Haru Ma’ by Swoopna Suman, which premiered on September 6, 2026, serves as a farewell letter to those who lost their lives during the movement.

The entire song speaks through the voice of someone who has passed away, reassuring, apologising, and asking not to be endlessly mourned.

Similarly, Neetesh Jung Kunwar’s song ‘Speechless’ released on September 7, 2026 describes a complete silence, where even ‘motherland’ fails to carry the weight of what happened.

‘Yaad Haru Ma’ offers comfort, but ‘Speechless’ sits with abandonment.

On September 8, 2026, Katha Ghera, in collaboration with Freedom Studio, staged a playback theatre performance, ‘Remembering September 8’.

Akanchha Karki, the production’s director, describes theatre as an “empathy-generating medium”.

In that small room, Karki believes, something larger happens, not just performance, but collective healing, collective catharsis.

That same day, ‘के’ (K?) organised with Kaalo.101, Nepal Point, Photo Circle, and several other collaborators, opened its doors for the public. This is an ongoing art exhibition that will run for a full year, until September 8, 2027. It is open Wednesdays to Sundays 4 to 6 pm at Kaalo.101, Lalitpur.

Visitors can contribute as they wish with artworks, stories, or thoughts.

A day later, on September 9, 2026, another group of Gen Z youths staged their own play at the old parliament building in New Baneshwar. It retold the movement’s story, from the protest to the election that eventually elected Balendra Shah as the Prime Minister.