About a Living Culture

Situated in the bustling Diversity Plaza of Jackson Heights, Queens, is a new art piece by the international artist Sneha Shrestha, also known as IMAGINE. The golden sculpture, titled About a Living Culture, is a six-foot-tall arch composed of rows of “Ka,” the first letter of the Nepali alphabet, an homage to the Himalayan community of the surrounding neighborhood.

“Ka” and other Devanagari letters can be found all throughout Shrestha’s body of artist work, which include street murals in Long Beach and pieces exhibited in prestigious museums across her adopted home of Boston, including the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Harvard Art Museums, and the Institute of Contemporary Art. This year, Shrestha was a recipient of the ICA’s James and Audrey Foster Prize, which recognizes exceptional artists in the Boston area. Born and raised in Kathmandu, Shrestha splits her time between the two cities.

The artist name IMAGINE comes from the translation of her mother’s name, and it reflects the bold yet inviting quality of her work. Shrestha’s art beckons viewers into contemplation with its blend of calligraphy and graffiti, language and color, tradition and modernity. Her unique style moves seamlessly from canvas to mural to sculpture, transforming any space it is given into a welcoming environment for all.

As an advocate for the arts, Shrestha works as the arts program manager for the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University, where she also received her master’s degree. In 2013, Shrestha founded the Children’s Art Museum in Nepal, and in 2018 she was recognized as one of the one hundred most influential women in Nepal by the Nepal Art Council.

About a Living Culture was commissioned by the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art and the New York City Department of Transportation Art Program, and will be on view until January 1, 2026. Prior to its installation, Shrestha spoke to Tricycle’s Kami Nguyen about her path as an artist and what is now her first public art sculpture.

When did you begin incorporating your cultural pride and heritage into your artwork? I’ve always made art throughout my life, but after moving to Boston, I really started questioning how I wanted to introduce myself. I think it’s always a difficult question. When someone asks you, ‘Oh, you’re from Nepal?’ maybe they might not know where it is, or they expect you to be an ambassador for a whole country. It’s the most difficult question. I kept coming across these questions, and I wanted to find something that I could say through my artwork that felt authentically Nepali in my context. I write in Devanagari script, which Nepali and Sanskrit are written in. They are my native letters. I grew up writing and speaking that language, so I feel like it authentically represents me.

How did this collaboration with the Rubin and the New York City Department of Transportation come to be? I had a show with the Rubin Museum, a group show last year, called Himalayan Art Now. It was their last in-person exhibition, and before I was commissioned to create pieces for the exhibition, I was invited to look through the collections of the Rubin Museum, and that’s how I got to know the institution. And the show also was really well received.

As my career progressed, I was looking for something that would help transform spaces other than murals, and I had created a couple of sculptures. For my first sculpture—that was commissioned by the Gardner Museum—I actually traveled to the Rubin Museum for that exhibit. And so that was a wonderful experience. I kept thinking, what if I could bring this experience outdoors so that it became part of people’s everyday lives? And then the collaboration between NYC DOT and the Rubin came about. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to apply,’ because the Rubin Museum has been such an amazing partner. And creating something in Jackson Heights out of everywhere in New York—that’s so meaningful. I got the grant, and we’re collaborating. And it’s been wonderful collaborating with both of the partners and having this chance to create something for the Himalayan diaspora in Jackson Heights—to serve the heart of where the Himalayan diaspora lives.

That sounds amazing! Yeah, I think the inspiration for the sculpture came from wanting to see something that felt familiar in a place that you might not always feel like you belong. And it’s not just me feeling it—there are so many other people who feel that way. And I thought, what if I put something that was sort of niche to Himalayan culture out in New York City? There are people from all over the world who walk through the streets there. Why not share something from a minority culture in a large way? Growing up in Kathmandu, there are little temples strewn about everywhere in the city that are so ancient. To stop and pay respect to them—it’s part of everyday life. I thought, what if I created something that provided a moment of reflection, or a moment of refuge, or a moment of meditation for busy people walking through the intersection? And that’s why there’s the repetition of the first letter of the Nepali alphabet, which is “Ka.” You’ll see a pattern in it, and it’s a repeating pattern. Essentially, it’s a visual meditation, because just like mantras, these letters are repeating over and over again. Meditation and reading mantras are so ingrained in our culture that I wanted to share it in a big, practical way.

Growing up in Kathmandu, there are little temples strewn about everywhere in the city that are so ancient. To stop and pay respect to them—it’s part of everyday life. I thought, what if I created something that provided a moment of reflection, or a moment of refuge, or a moment of meditation for busy people walking through the intersection?

The shape of the sculpture comes from architectural shapes across the Himalayan region. And in Kathmandu, too, there are so many windows and doors that are shaped with arches, but it also feels like a universal connector, because you see arches everywhere. You see arches in architecture in Boston, in Italy, in all these places and, it’s such a cool thing—the shape is so precise, and it’s part of our everyday architectural vernacular. I also wanted to bring that together, something that bridges us together.

That’s what the sculpture is about. There’s one feature of the sculpture that I’m particularly excited about. There’s this fabric that’s draped on the top part of the sculpture. And usually you see this fabric on the roof of Nepali temples or during festivals—like in parade festivals where people are celebrating, you’ll see these fabrics a lot. And I put that part in the sculpture because the sculpture is made out of steel, and it’s powder coated gold. And this red fabric there—it’s like the living part of the sculpture. The fabric will move in the wind, and the fabric will probably fade in time too. All to say that change is part of our everyday lives, and I wanted a living part attached to the sculpture. So getting to include all these elements in it—and speak in the Buddhist culture that I grew up with—I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to be able to take inspiration from the diverse Himalayan culture and then have something there that’s an homage to that culture.

Can you say more about how Buddhism informed your process of making this piece and making public art in general? I think it’s, as I said, the meditation part of it, the mindfulness part of it, the reflection part of it. Also, the living part of the sculpture—accepting that not everything stays the same forever. Change is inevitable, and meditation should be a part of our everyday lives. Why not take a moment of peace through your mind? Also, slowing down is a big part, too, and being reflective. I grew up in a Buddhist and Hindu household, watching my grandfather meditate and do yoga in the mornings at 5 a.m., and this was part of his everyday. This is before yoga was Lululemon-ized, right? Before matching sets were a thing. And I just want to share that part of the everyday, where it should feel like breathing. Meditation is essentially breathing in certain patterns, so what if you had a pattern to your breath and you could bring your mind to be still for just a moment and meditate? All these parts play into that.

I also saw that this piece has a lot of similar elements to the one that you did for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Calling the Earth to Witness, 2020). Do you want to tell me if there’s any connection between the two, or maybe connections between all the pieces that you make? I like how cohesive your art is. Thank you! So far in my sculptures the repetition of the letter “Ka” has been a through theme. The Gardner Museum was my first large sculpture, and in that I created three arches horizontally, and that piece was golden as well. And then the sculpture that was recently acquired by the Harvard Art Museums (Dwarpalika, 2023)—that is also an arch-shaped sculpture that suspends in a different way. And so I think those two major sculptures gave birth to this one, because this sculpture—she has to be outside. I learned so much about material and structural integrity of things and became a better collaborator to create this sculpture. Everything came together.

My sculpture on view at the ICA in Boston is also similar in that “Ka” is the repeating pattern, but she suspends from the ceiling in a different way. I’m figuring out how sculptures can also transform spaces. I also love that the gold is going to be really reflective gold. When light bounces off of it, it’ll change throughout the day. And the letters are also cut out so that you can see through them. The shadow that it’s going to create is also going to be interesting and will change throughout the day. It’s almost like the sculpture will interact with Mother Nature and change the surroundings as time passes, which I love—which is hard to get in an inside space. So from my mural practice, I think that’s what I borrow—collaborating with natural elements, especially light. I’m really excited to see how this interaction takes place on this one.

I feel like it’ll be really beautiful to look at, especially in the winter. Yeah, I’m excited about wintertime and sunset time. I want to see how the sun travels throughout the day in that space. The pattern is also inspired by traditional Newar windows. They still exist to this day. Ancient windows—they didn’t used to have glass. They just had these geometric patterns, so it would provide privacy from the outside, and then people couldn’t see from the outside, but you could see from the inside, and breezes can pass through. It’s very practical. But also a lot of times, these windows are used for various temples, so if you look through, you can see the shrine or the deity inside. This sculpture being outdoors—people can see each other through it. I hope that it brings a moment of reflection and seeing the divine in each other too. In so many ways, the sculpture could make the space come alive by all these interactions with the natural architecture, with the social architecture, and the natural elements.

Lastly, I was wondering, how do you hope that people will feel about the sculpture, especially the Nepali community in the area? That is such an exciting thought for me—for a little girl to see my name and recognize that the name is Nepali and stop in her tracks. And then for other people to see the impact of a fellow Nepali too. The wider message being, we deserve to be seen in a big way, too, not just Nepali people but minority culture, because we make up what the country is. We are part of the country. And so I think that would be really exciting for other brown and black little girls to see something and then read a name that doesn’t sound like something they would hear every day. Maybe it sounds similar to their name or somebody they know. I think that would be super cool. And there are elements to it—like the gold, the shape, the fabric on top—that will, I hope in some way, say “home” to people from the Himalayan diaspora, something familiar about it that might ring a bell for them. That is my hope. And then for people in general—I hope that they feel welcomed in that space. I hope it’s a space for curiosity and conversations to take place.