Art of collecting sea shells.

Seascape is one of the favorite spaces of mine. I wonder the various colour scheme of blue when I look through the water and the sky. The unlimited space and the sound of waves takes me in to another world. Every time when I go to the sides I focus to collecting something different. I specially prepare myself to find out them in different forms and collect and keep them carefully. And I find out my kind of people for the co-operation.  I found out that I had this kind of interest from my childhood. When I go back through my past I remember the days which I pleased my schoolmates to get some shells from their collections. And nobody give anything to me and I keep asking my parents to go to the beach for collect them and unfortunately our hometown (Vavuniya) is located in the middle of our island so it was difficult to go to the beach and it was very expensive to make family tour at that time. But now everything has changed. When I come to Jaffna for my studies the first thing I wonder was about the seascapes. We have a lot of beaches around the city. And I am getting chances to take my friends to the sea sides who come from the other regions. I have a huge collection of shells now and keep sharing with some of my friends who really wanted to keep with them. And I am happy to do it because sharing things with others is the good sense and only the human’s ability. 


                                   
                                 

                                          

                                   

                                        

                                         

The politics & aesthetics of Space:

Colonial Buildings in Oorkavathurai (kayts)

‘Is there a space, there is aesthetic. Is there aesthetic there is politics.’ I keep thinking about these words from my bachelor’s studies. Most of our theory classes based with these two words aesthetics & politics. Politics is different by person and the political thinking came from the selfishness. It is built up when a person or a community start to think only their purpose without any thinking about others. By my understanding I keep this definition for ‘politics’.

Recently there was a talk at the university by Brintha Kulasingam who is a temporary lecturer at the fine arts department. She submitted her reading on the Colonial building of Oorkavathurai (Kayts. Orkavathurai is the second harbor (Naturally formed) of Sri Lanka. In the Colonial period it was a very famous town which celebrated by the colonial kings.  It was very interesting the way she presented it and she very clearly argued the connection of the aesthetics and the politics through the history.

*Introduction of the place (The form and the landscape the meaning of the name, etc).

*History of the Generations who lived and ruled the place in the past, how was it famous and for what & the current situation of the place

*The buildings of the Place (The forts, churches, Hospitals, schools, homes.) & the style, period, regional influence, builders, medium, destruction and renovation.

*The political connections through the form (aesthetics) of these buildings- Tackling and rule, spread religion, addiction, profiling status, race, caste separation.

*conclusion & questions.

These are the main parts of the reading and it is not possible to write all about it because I like to keep the copyrights of the researcher. I was visited to the place in 2017 and I keep the images with me. So I decided this would be the correct moment to share the images of the place.

Jaffna Photography Festival- 2019

November 22-25

It's About Time- Mobile Museum and the exhibition.

This is an Exhibition of the memories held in the first week of November. And the project was started to make an understanding between the three races people of Sri Lanka by the Historical Dialogue team. It was my luck visit to the space and also got an invitation for the book launch. These are the images of the display, will take a time to write about the whole features of the project very soon.

Re-Tooling workshop#1: hacking the system

In October 19 & 20 I got a chance to participate in the workshop. The two days were very useful for me. As a practicing artist I wanted to gain some knowledge about the current system of art world. Especially the functions about the Galleries, art festivals, biennials. And finally I felt that I came to the correct point to find out it. The workshop had organized by Colomcoscope. And it was held in a coolest place called Gampola which is located in the middle of Sri Lanka. Between the hills and huge mountains there is a home- like Hotel where we all gathered and stayed for two days. Personally this was the first time to me travel alone to the upcountry and I was the only person who visit from Jaffna. I was excited to reach the hotel as a first member in our team and reached around 4.30 pm in that dark rainy evening. I had to wait for the other members who arrived in the late night and we all welcomed by Iromi and Luca who are the owners of the whole property of the hotel ‘Ellerton’.   

The curator of Colomboscope Natasha Ginnwala introduced about the program and explained the aim of the workshop in the morning session. And all the sessions had completed one by one according the schedule.

*Terms & conditions

*Spatial Practice

*Print Matters

*Case Studies

Were the topics of the schedule and there were some group activities in the middle. They were very useful. We could discuss about the problems what we are facing in practicing. Also we could talk about the issues about gallery spaces and art festivals specially the positive and negative sides of them. All the members shared their own experiences. We had chance to do the presentation about what we did in the past and the present days. I also got chance to do some translation in the middle of the sessions it helped to focus the whole sessions with attention. Over all the gathering gave a lot of energy. I could meet some of my artist friends after a long time from the South and East. Also the curators and designers as well. In the end the curator introduced the next Colomboscope which is going to be in 2021. Finally we end up the two day workshop with the strong conclusion and farewell with the lovely dinner. I stayed the night and came back to Jaffna in the next day.

The Temporary Kid...

Having pets is a different experience. some people put lot of energy on it and some never mind it. I had variety of pets in my childhood. There was a huge list of them. Dogs, cats, squirrels, rabbits, parrots, lovebirds, sparrows, bulbuls ( Red vented), chickadees,  and some more... As a last kid of my family the freedom turned me to focus my thoughts on these souls . I loved them the same time they expressed their love mostly by their body language. The soft touch of their hands and face,  lick by their tongue, playful cry...are the way of expressions. It melts the heart sometimes and makes wonder about their love. The last members of the list were Rabbits. I got them by accident, found both of them in a rainy day when they were crying on a road without their mother. They had not teeth at that time.. I had to use a syringe to feed milk to them and they became big too fast and got energy to dig  holes in the ground. They were addicted with me a lot. My mother noticed and let me know that the direction which they looked and sit always was the side where I stand or sit. when I go around the land they also turn their faces like following me. Every morning they were looking the main door to welcome me by their lovely look. Finally with in eight months I released them to go to the forest side.. also got the University admission to study art & design and spent all the time in studies.. so more than ten years I could not get any chance to have a pet because of the hostel life and the rent houses..

Recently when I go home I had an experience again something new.. it was a monsoon morning. Around 5 a.m a loud cry wake me up. Yes it was a baby palm civet. Fallen down from the chimney. It took around an hour to recognize what was it. the body was wet, and chattering because of the cold. Immediately I found out a solution to put it in a safe place. Later on it stopped crying and had a nice sleep, I lost mine... and started to think to have with me to feed it and name it. But that was not possible because my parents suggested that they didn't have any experience before with that. And normally people do not keep them as pets. They are pure wild animals as well. But I could not let it to go because it was too little and when I look it's sleep was very poor. Finally I had to take a decision to let it to meet her mother. That was the only way to keep it safe and survive. Later on I put it in the top roof of our house and waited until it meet it's mother. In the meantime my father called me to come inside to the house, as a father he wanted to safe me from the rain and thunder. So I couldn't see the  the meeting of mother and child and came back to Jaffna. In the end the civet was just a temporary kid.... who made me to remind the memories of my rabbits again..I named them Ramu and Somu.....I miss them a lot...  

The first solo exhibition at the university...

Loss and Existence..

My current residence in Jaffna is the result of multiple histories of displacement and travel. In 1995, my family was displaced from Jaffna to Vavuniya. When we returned to visit Jaffna 27 years later, our home was no longer there. While my family continues to reside in Vavuniya, I returned to live in Jaffna as a university student to study art. Jaffna became an important site for my practice, and I decided to stay once I finished my studies. This decision required that I seek residence in a place I once called home. Most of my childhood is now linked to Vavuniya, and I often feel torn between these two locations and residences. This exhibition is an examination of this tension by looking to the stories and emotional attachments of residences throughout the Jaffna peninsula.

Though there is an abundance of new wedding halls and shopping complexes in the North, residential properties make up a significant portion of property collection. Yet many families, including my own, have struggled to keep a house as their permanent residence. There is also an abundance of abandoned homes and residential structures. What is the future of these emptied residences? Will they live long in their abandon, or eventually deteriorate and disintegrate? Will anybody come to live in them? Or will they forever remain a property for display?

21.08.2019