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This week sees the launch of an exciting new exhibition, drawing on the Society’s historic Collections on Everest and the wider Himalayas and making use of the vast swathes of Collections material, which has been digitised and made available through Wiley Digital Archives (WDA).

The collaborative work showcases innovative approaches to reactivating the Collections and opens new possibilities for how the Society approaches community engagement.

The exhibition, “बाउ को धुरी छैन” (Father Has No Roof Over His Head) focuses on two Sherpas: Ang Tsering Sherpa and Chetten Habadar Wangdi. Both men climbed Everest (and other mountains) and took part in multiple expeditions as both Sherpa and interpreter.

Material from the Society’s Collections have been brought together for this exhibition by the Confluence Collective (TCC), alongside local archives and oral history interviews with A. T. Sherpa and C. H. Wangdi’s surviving family members.

TCC are a group of Sikkim-based researchers and artists seeking to preserve, archive and retell the histories of the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalayan region, to build a community which will encourage a better understanding and documentation of the region.

Porters fording a river while carrying a dog.
© RGS-IBG Collections
Porters fording a river carrying a dog. En route to Everest the expedition had to cross many rivers and streams and use their ingenuity to prevent themselves getting wet. Here one porter fords a river carrying both his friend and a dog! Taken during the Mount Everest Expedition 1933 by Frank S. Smythe. (RGS ref. S0001430).
  • Porters fording a river while carrying a dog.
  • Karma Paul, Dzongpen, team members and other Tibetans.
  • L.V. Bryant and Karma Paul sit cross legged drinking butter tea.

The Society’s partnership with TCC, is part of our involvement with the Other Everests interdisciplinary research network from 2022-2024, which sought to critically assess the legacy of the Everest expeditions and to re-evaluate the symbolic, political, and cultural status of Everest in the contemporary world.

As part of this collaboration, we enabled access for TCC members to Wiley Digital Archives and over eight million images of digitised Collections content.

At the heart of their research for this new exhibition, there are conversations with the families of the two Sherpas, who hold their memories and history.

As well as collating their personal archives, including postcards, letters, school magazines, TCC has used the Society materials available via WDA to add to these family histories, providing additional information that the families may no longer have access to.

This two-way exchange is immensely valuable and sets a standard for future reciprocal community engagement work with and by the Society.

The exhibition runs from 21 to 27 February in Kalimpong, West Bengal.

Read more about the Confluence Collective

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