Photos by Sebastian Posingis
When a delicate object like a glass vase, ceramic bowl or porcelain cup breaks, we throw it away thinking that it is beyond repair. But in the Japanese art of kintsugi, cracks and breaks are mended with gold enamel so that they are emphasised rather than disguised.
Kintsugi was the inspiration behind Anoma Wijewardene’s Venice Biennale exhibition, which is being shown in Sri Lanka for the first time at Cinnamon Life as an installation comprising paintings, a book and a video. The theme for the biennale was aptly, may you live in interesting times. Held in May of 2019, it was just a month after the Easter Sunday attacks.
The work, a collaboration across three continents, explores the embracing of diversity and the seeking of unity and harmony in light of these turbulent times; it is even more relevant five years later. Anoma’s installation inspires people to reflect upon and seek out common humanity in the face of conflict, division, fear and insecurity.
Groundviews asked Anoma the relevance of kintsugi to Sri Lanka, the collaborations in the work and renewed hope for the country.
What is kintsugi?
Kintsugi is a restoration technique that highlights rather than conceals the fractures of porcelain with gold lacquer. This process embraces imperfection and celebrates unity in diversity. Inspired by this Japanese concept, my installation searches for harmony and renewal in a turbulent time, embracing the fractured and disparate, and reconstructing and deconstructing to find unifying beauty. It was a response to the normalising of unconscionable hatred and loss unleashed by war, poverty and climate crisis. As the desperate seek security and survival, societies are wounded and people are heartbroken; we all yearn for healing whether it is in Gaza or Ukraine, London or Lanka. The use of unrelated content, colour, techniques and mediums reflect the diversity I wanted to highlight while trying to reach a harmonious balance. The mesh cloth of the installations evokes fragility and impermanence while the laser cutting emphasises all that is porous and likely to be lost. The mirrors imply the need for mindfulness and self-reflection. I asked the London based Sri Lankan author Romesh Gunesekera to write a short paragraph about the collection of painting. His response was a fascinating collection of poems that inspired me to redesign the kintsugi book of paintings alongside the poetry. The LA musician Sharon Smith composed the haunting music inspired by the painting and poetry, which in turn led me to conceive and direct the kintsugi video to bring together the three diverse art forms into one unified art work. It was never planned; it just evolved. The many layered works of disparate ideas, content and form would not have been possible without this collaboration across three continents. Kintsugi invites us to embrace imperfection, unite the broken and accept the stewardship we share of our fragile and precious planet.
Is it still relevant today?
Oddly enough it’s even more relevant today – more and more relevant rather than less and less. It’s actually not time bound. I had hoped it would be different and we would be living in more peaceful times but it has become even more dystopian. I started the work in 2014 and finished in 2018. Romesh came into the picture in 2017 while Sharon came a bit later when I went to LA and met her for the first time. It’s something that had been gestating for a long time and then naturally evolved and grew in an organic way. Everyone was casual and laid back rather than forced, which is how I like collaborating with people – giving them space to explore their own creativity and skills and combine it all together. I wanted it to be very poetic as well as a powerful comment. No artist can provide answers but we can ask questions. I am happy for any artist to be doing their work because it is better than making war and hating each other.
How does the concept of kintsugi apply to the situation in Sri Lanka?
It is very relevant. I don’t think I would have considered it as an idea if I didn’t have to live with the impact of conflicting religions and races that have torn each other apart. We can’t surmount our differences and accept our diversity, seeing it as a strength and a richness from which we can grow and build each other and the country up. Unity doesn’t seem to happen. We are constantly divided whether it’s Tamil, Muslim, Sinhala or Christian. We have belligerent tendencies and difficulty with empathy for the other. I think it’s this othering that is the problem, or maybe it’s fear; I don’t know if we are operating out of fear because we want the known and the comfortable and the safe rather than the new and the separate. I do this work because I feel passionately affected and anxious about my own life here in this context of hate, violence and division. I arrived in Venice for the opening of the Biennale two weeks after Easter Sunday attacks. The work had been completed months before but it was even more powerful to the viewers who were responding to the fact that the world knew about what had happened in April. The world was responding as seen by the comments in visitors’ book.
How do the collaborations with Sharon and Romesh add to the work?
It has not just added but I think it is crucial to the work and to experiencing the whole body of the installation, which has four parts – the paintings, the panel installation, the book and the video. We did a book of poetry and paintings, which wouldn’t have happened if not for Romesh. The video would not have worked without the musician. The poetry, art and music are intrinsic to the whole of the installation. It is the first Sri Lankan viewing of the work, which was done and inspired by Sri Lanka. Now it is back in its rightful place and home at Cinnamon Life.
Are you hopeful that Sri Lanka is now on a path of repair and renewal like kintsugi?
If we didn’t hope we couldn’t live but we are also good at deluding ourselves; we are good at fantasising and we are also good at imagining that it is easy. Peace is not easy and survival is not easy and getting it right is not easy. It’s very hard and constant, continuous work. It’s too simple to suppose that a leader, a president, a politician or a prime minister can resolve our problems unless as a nation we work very hard and we are rigorous in how we judge ourselves and how we think about our approach to each other. We need to really look at reconciliation. Have we done work with truth and reconciliation like South Africa did? Have we seen that we can’t change the man in the mirror unless we change ourselves individually? We need to work on that. While hope is how we manage to live and we can’t survive without it, we must be realistic about what needs to be done and how hard the road ahead of us is.