Nepalese Photography Exhibit goes out with a Cultural Bang

The Nepalese Student Association celebrated their camera-captured culture through fashion, song and dance during the closing program of the 1930's Nepal photographic exhibit at the Sheerar Museum of Stillwater History on Sunday.

The museum displayed the lost photo collection for less than a week, Director Ammie Bryant said.  

"Normally, we focus more on the history of Stillwater," Bryant said. "This has a more indirect connection in that it is tied to Oklahoma's history through the photographer."

Richard Gordon Matzene, a world famous photographer of the early 1920's, lived in and donated his work to Ponca City later in the decade, Bryant said.

His photography of Nepalese royalty is rare, Bryant said. Matzene was allowed into the country under strict circumstances to keep Nepal free from western influence.

OSU Art History professor Marcela Sirhandi traveled to India to identify the mysteries of the photos, Bryant said. Sirhandi was the curator of the Sheerar Nepal photograph exhibit.

"This exhibit reveals the culture of Nepal," Bryant said.  "We have a huge Nepalese presence on campus."

"The photographs are a way to keep our history alive," NSA President Shivani Adhikari said. "They help put a face to a name."

Matzene's photographs of Nepalese royalty along with traditional Nepalese ritual dances and songs performed by the NSA drew smiles and applause from the audience.

NSA is one of twenty area clubs in the OSU International Student Organization.