THE ART OF MODERNITY

What is modernity? While this term is commonly used, it is too often forced on people and communities rather than being taken directly from their voices. Following the tradition of studies by Mark Liechty (2003) and Stacy Leigh Pigg (1992), as a part of my doctoral studies on social change in Nepal, I bring together the perspectives of local people on the notion of modernity in order to get a sense of how this is related locally to individual experiences. Through ethnographic data collection and painting, in this project I explored the intertwining of ideas of self with ideas of modernity and how this process of self-reflexivity occurs within the domestic context. Theoretically, this artistic project is conceived through the lenses of Baudelaire’s notion of modernity as a process of self-discovery and self-making, and of Bauman’s idea of ‘liquid modernity’, as a process involving constant self-improvement and uncertainty.