Collection stories: sarangi

New Acquisitions Photography Obj No: 2012/16/1 Sarangi and bow, wood / goat skin / metal / plastic, maker unknown,<br />
Nepal, 2000-2004

In 2010 and 2011 Nepalese student Bikram Sherchan studied tourism at The Hills College, TAFE. Just before he left Australia he donated this sarangi to the Powerhouse.

He returned to Nepal to establish a tourism business to promote the culture and music of one the smallest of the 100 ethnic groups in Nepal, the Gandarbha people. Gandharbas are a caste of musicians who travel from village to village, house to house, singing and playing the Sarangi. Bikram was very grateful for the opportunity to study in Australia and wanted to give something back to Australia

as a symbol of friendship between the people of Australia and Nepal.

This is the first video in a series that the team is making that will highlight stories about objects from the Powerhouse Museum collection.

Video by Katheleen Phillips
Photography by Sotha Bourn
© All rights reserved

Tags: collection stories, Nepal, sarangi, series, video

The Powerhouse Museum's Photo of the Day blog features a new image each day, chosen from the Powerhouse Photo Library.

The majority of these images have been taken by Museum photographers for a variety of purposes such as for exhibitions, of objects in our collection, events, behind-the-scenes and location shots. We also feature many images taken by our Flickr community and from our visitors. We hope you enjoy the photographs and stories.

The licensing of each image varies however we are trying to release as many as possible under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.1 license.