It debuted to rave reviews in Australia in early 2019 and met with the same response in Edinburgh and Birmingham. Despite recounting very personal and Sri Lankan experiences, S. Shakthidaran’s Counting and Cracking…
GotaGoGama is gone. Gota has returned. Things have regressed in the past two months or so. The nucleus of Sri Lanka’s popular protests have ceased to exist. Its last days were a…
Performance art is an offshoot of visual arts where the artist uses his or her body as a medium of communication. Performance art has always been interconnected with society and politics. Artists…
A common theme running through this year’s Colomboscope, entitled Language is Migrant, is the enduring consequences of Sri Lanka’s civil war as seen through the eyes of several young artists based in…
Laki is seated on a black, high-backed, padded executive swivel chair. He is bare-bodied, in a bright red sarong, dappled sunlight catching his white beard. On the table in front of him…
Histories of the tri-traditional dances of Sri Lanka – Kandyan, Low Country and Sabaragamuwa – generally highlight a handful of pioneering women, point out their significance as the first female dancers on…
Animals continue to crack in Sri Lanka, Richard. Lions don’t exist in the natural state, nor tigers roam through the brush. Elephants, yes, are still around, mostly straggly survivors in an orphanage…
Artist Gayan Prageeth is exhibiting his latest collection, Eyes Only, at the Saskia Fernando Gallery. His work reflects a deep concern for the state of society and politics, delving into the psyche…
It is increasingly evident that the lasting impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic will not be merely health related. In the early stages of government efforts to contain the virus and over the…
Today is the Global Day of Climate Action Themes of sustainability and environmental degradation have pervaded my work since 2004, long before climate change or the extinction rebellion became global political issues.…
For the past 22 years, activist and renowned contemporary artist Chandraguptha Thenuwara has been memorialising the horrific period of July 1983 through paintings, drawings, sculpture and installation. This year, undeterred by the…
In the 1970s and 1980s, Sri Lanka witnessed a marked conflict between the State’s enactment of power in relation to the control of public space, and street theatre’s appropriation of it. The…
Arun Welandawe-Prematilleke was awarded the Gratiaen Prize 2018 for his play ‘The One Who Loves You So’ (TOWLYS). The drama explores the relationship between Vidhura, a ‘Colombo trust fund baby’, and Nick,…
The beautiful Fenya of Greek decent asks me with a humble smile if I know the Sinhala word that gives meaning to ‘shame’. Having received ‘yes’ for an answer she sits on…
– J.M. Coetzee , seated at the foot of my father’s easy-chair, not understanding (as a nine, ten, eleven-year-old) the incisive commentary the show was making. Soon enough as a teen, I…
