Meetings across acrylic, canvas and dance: India-Sri Lanka Artists Week
I spent some time with 12 visual artists and 1 dancer, from Sri Lanka and India, at the Taj Samudra Hotel in Colombo today, who are part of an interesting and pioneering…
Culture
Is sex work, work?
Photo by AP, via Occupy.com Two weeks ago we found ourselves sitting in a room full of three wheeler drivers working in the Colombo Fort area on what seemed like an all…
Innovating Under Duress: Implications of the Global Innovation Index for Sri Lanka
Science writer Nalaka Gunawardene in conversation with Dr Ajith de Alwis, engineer and public intellectual Sri Lanka was ranked at No 98 among 142 countries worldwide in the Global Innovation Index 2013…
30 Years Ago: Audio recordings of panel discussions
Photograph by Tehani Ariyaratne, from 30 Years Ago To complement the launch of 30 Years Ago and focus on some of the issues the project is anchored to and inspired by, four panel discussions…
Madras Cafe: A timely interrogation
“There are events, facts from history” and according to the director Shoojit Sircar his film Madras Cafe (2013) is “fiction inspired from fact”.[1] And while the director claims that his film is…
‘Flying Fish’ and the Constriction of the Arts in Sri Lanka
I met Sanjeeva Pushpakumara last year in a little art cinema off the Champs Elysees at the showing of Ashoka Handagama’s Ini Avan. It seemed he knew me from his days as…
Prince Salie: A story of sapphires and steamships
Mohammed Usuff Mohammed Salie was born in 1877. He was the grandson of Mohamed Usuff, the Alim of the Kandawatte mosque in Galle, who was responsible for handwriting a Quran he knew…
In conversation with Michael Mendis: Winner of 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Asia
Michael Mendis is the winner of the 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Asia. ‘The Sarong-Man in the Old House, and an Incubus for a Rainy Night’ can be read in full…
‘Women’s Issues’: Shooting the messenger
Image courtesy ICRW Archives of Manushi, written by Sohaila (1983) Sri Lanka reminds one of one’s gender. To be female in a public bus is to be visually harassed (or more) and…
Memes and the Art of Majority Placation in Sri Lanka
The thing about Social Media is that it gives people a shot at engineering their identities without much effort. A simple ‘like’ or ‘share’ of a particular picture can easily give the…
Ini Avan: Hauntingly beautiful but…
Ini Avan, Asoka Handagama’s latest film, in Tamil, has won international cinematic acclaim. And it is easy to see why. The film has interesting characters who within their confined destinies take some…
Unearthed: Architecture, text, theatre and dance
brings together a cast of theatre and movement practitioners to create a site-specific performance. To unpack the production, and flesh out how it came about, sat down with Ruhanie Perera, the Artistic Director of…
In conversation with Shashi Tharoor: India, literature, politics and South Asia
Having moderated a session with Shashi Tharoor earlier this year at the Galle Literary Festival, we met up again in Colombo last week to talk about the writer-politician’s new book, and his…
Religious sensitivities, the Islamic world and the communication revolution
Much hue and cry has been raised the world over the US made video titled “The Innocence of Islam”. In Sri Lanka too we have seen protests and numerous articles on the…
“Inventors are like artists – we must celebrate and nurture them!”
For over two decades, Deepal Sooriyaarachchi made a name for himself as an innovative Chartered Marketer and Management Development Consultant. While holding top executive positions in leading companies, he also excelled as…