Reconstructed truths.

I made this short movie almost 3 years ago to answer the question, "How was your trip to Kathmandu?" Except that one professor who graded my work, I never had the heart to share with another eye. The subject matter was complex and could never be done in a few sentences while the casual questioner expects accounts of a dreamlike, simplistic experience. Travel log is a wretched, desperate genre when done as an elevator pitch.  

In the description sent to the professor, I wrote:

My piece explores the gray realm of memory, how it is impossible to preserve a past perfectly despite one's commitment to accuracy. Amidst the plethora of internal voices and feelings, memories are constantly dissolved, reconstructed, and forged.

The 4 months I lived in Kathmandu require complex narratives, weaving the ecstatic with fibers of despair. But when I revisit Kathmandu through the printing of photos and the rewatching of captured moments, I was designing which truth I would stick to; My choice to focus on exhibiting faces of friends comes from (1) the recognition that relational connections are the most influential in my (sub)conscious reconstruction of the city, (2) a personal feeling of gratitude, or indebtedness, and (3) the simplicity that is socially expected to answer, "How was your trip?" For now, I still cannot reveal the complex narrative that is my experience; such an ambivalence is the closest to my truth.

My chosen visual method displays distance; Like many travel videos, where only selected good things are showcased, my voice of discontentment, fear, and frustration is there, yet muffled and suppressed.