Hitesh Vaidya

Hitesh Vaidya is a visual artist and educator based in Bhaktapur, Nepal. His practice explores how everyday objects, spaces, and rituals quietly shape collective memory, bridging traditional culture with contemporary life. Drawing on the lived histories of Bhaktapur, Kathmandu, and Patan, Vaidya interprets the city through its domestic rhythms, communal architectures, and interpersonal relationships. He works across painting, moving images, and interventions into existing objects, reanimating overlooked materials to tell layered stories of inheritance, loss, and belonging.

Vaidya completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts at Kathmandu University’s Department of Arts in 2019. His work has been featured at major platforms including the Kathmandu Triennale 2022 and the India Art Fair 2024. Through both his artistic and curatorial projects, Vaidya engages the dilemmas of past and present, questioning what we belong to and what belongs to us.

This fall, as the Mittal Institute’s Visiting Artist Fellow at Harvard University, Vaidya is researching models for community-rooted contemporary art spaces in Bhaktapur. His project draws on participatory art, curatorial practice, and local histories to bridge gallery culture with everyday audiences. During his fellowship, he is particularly interested in the relationship between traditional culture and contemporary experience, the materiality of art objects, and approaches to communal engagement. By engaging Harvard’s museums, libraries, and art centers, he seeks to expand his global perspective on how community-based art practices can create spaces of connection and remembrance.

View A Slideshow of Hitesh’s Work – click to view captions and advance the images