Subas Tamang

Subas Tamang (b.1990) comes from a family of traditional stone carvers from the Tamang community. Through his works, he aims to reorient the understanding of Tamang history by questioning the very ways in which narratives of the Tamang past are constructed. Bureaucratic, ethnographic, and colonial sources often subordinate the agency of the Tamangs and all that is left are sights of trauma and dehumanization. In his art, Tamang uses oral narratives as well as vernacular materials and techniques such as slate carving, engraving, and printmaking to present a new historiography of his community. The materials he uses reference Tamang traditions, serving as an active process to value and preserve knowledge and skills that are often passed from generation to generation. Simultaneously, his other works incorporate interactive video installations as a means to engage with indigenous themes in novel forms. 

Tamang received his MFA from Central Department of Fine Arts, Tribhuvan University in 2019. He was commissioned by the Samdani Art Foundation for his autobiographical monumental work “I Want To Die In My Own House” at the Srihatta Samdani Art Center & Sculpture Park in Sylhet, Bangladesh. As a part of ArTree Nepal he has also exhibited at the Biennale of Sydney 2020, and the Dhaka Art Summit 2020. In Nepal, Tamang’s works have been exhibited at the Nepal Art Council and the Siddhartha Art Gallery.