sweet Land of Liberty

Sweet Land of Liberty, previously Songs from Hill and Land explores young, working-class Nepali men and the ways masculinity is shaped by social expectations, caste and class, inherited roles, and the pressures of migration. Many of the men I have worked with come from rural areas and marginalized communities. In Kathmandu, they work on construction sites, helping to build the rapidly changing city while navigating expectations of what it means to be a man, a worker, a son, and a provider.

The project began through my long-term work with young men at construction sites. Over time, I became interested not only in observing their everyday lives, but in how they might represent themselves beyond the roles and identities assigned to them. Sweet Land of Liberty is a collaborative visual conversation in which we make portraits together through conversation, improvisation, trial and error, and play.

We use whatever is around us: found materials, clothing, props, gestures, fragments of popular culture, family photographs, and images from social media. Some ideas come from me, others from the men themselves. Together, we create images that move between the everyday and the imagined, between who they are and how they might want to be seen. In this process, the photograph becomes less a record of reality and more a space for fantasy, self-representation, and possibility.

What happens when a working body is given space to imagine itself differently? What do these images reveal about the ways we perform, negotiate, and resist the expectations placed upon us? And what might become possible when an image becomes a small rehearsal for another kind of freedom?