NAYANTARA GURUNG KAKSHAPATI lives in Kathmandu, Nepal and works at the intersections of visual storytelling, research, pedagogy, and collective action. In 2007, she co-founded photo.circle, an independent artist-led platform that facilitates learning, exhibition making, publishing and a variety of other trans-disciplinary collaborative projects for Nepali visual practitioners. In 2011, she co-founded Nepal Picture Library, a digital archiving initiative that works towards diversifying Nepali socio-cultural and political history. NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati is also the co-founder and festival director of Photo Kathmandu, an international festival that takes place in Kathmandu every two years. She has served as festival director for South Asia’s premier non-fiction film festival Film Southasia, been part of the selection committee for the first cycle of World Press Photo’s 6x6 Global Talent Program in Asia, and been a mentor for the 2020 World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass. She was recently awarded the 2020 Jane Lombard Fellowship by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, New York. She studied documentary photography at the SALT Institute of Documentary Studies, Maine and International Relations and Studio Art at Mt Holyoke College, Massachusetts.