The Days In
Hirikkettiya…
It was a good chance for me to
take part in the two days workshop on art and language in Hiriketiya. I had
received the invitation from Jyoti Dhar the journalist, because of my interest
in art history and criticism. The schedule of the program was planned by the
group of organizers of the workshop. The
first day we all gathered in the morning in front of the Swiss embassy in Colombo
for a long drive to reach the place. It was the first time which I traveled to
the exact south of Sri Lanka it means Hiriketiya is the edge of southern
Srilanka. Finally we reached the place around 2.00pm. The Place we stayed was
covered by the beaches and sort of architecture. And variety of houses provided
to stay the artists and the scholars. They
were called with different names like ‘Clay house’ ‘Salt house’ ‘Tree house’
and some more.
After the lunch we had a gathering at ‘Soto house’. There we met
all the participants and introduced ourselves. Later on we had a look of the
new architectural space in under construction which is being built by the Swiss
art council as an art space and a gallery to support the artists in Sri Lanka
and abroad too. After that we moved to tree house where we had the colorful Sri
Lankan mixed Swiss dinner. It was really unfamiliar to me but in the end I felt
like fulfilled. I also enjoyed playing Petanque balls game with the kids and
scored high. The day had got off in this way and we went back to our rooms. The
whole night I was able to hear the noise of the huge waves.
The next morning was very excited,
and also we gathered in the purple house with breakfast. And then the workshop
started at Soto house was like a type of panel discussion. There were sort of
critic writings in prints by several writers. So first we were asked to have a
look them and accordingly we had to suggest our opinion. It was like an independent
space to discuss about the current situation of our society issues related with
art writing. So I talked about the art culture in Jaffna an also explain how
the art frame designed as well. In this
way of reading we discussed a lot of things like the domination of politics in
writing, the limitations of writing criticism and also the important of
language. It was really useful especially
I interested in the reading of the Poem ‘The Ha-Ha’ of Himali Singh Soin. Actually
it is a criticism/description of a painting titled ‘An Indian Lady’ was written
like a poem. We all read it one by one in order and in the end Himali who is
the writer talked about the idea of her writing. After the panel discussion
there was a presentation delivered by Prof. Maria Lookman and it was like a
deep reading about women artists of Pakistan. Later on we also discussed about it and some people
asked good questions based on the presentation. Finally we closed the discussions
and took some oaths ourselves to continue the conversations and our contacts in
the following years too.
In this way I am glad to had two
valuable days in January. Not only the
workshop, I impressed the long travel through the nice landscape of Colombo to
Galle highway, the beauty of nature in Matara, especially the sea side and the
architecture also. And I got new friends and keep contact with them. It is
really a good experience to me to expand my thoughts in various ways.
