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

Walking Heritage into Future Cities

Focused on the growing interest in heritage walking in urban settings the event had organised by University Of Exeter and Heritage walk Calcutta, on 23rd & 24th of June at Sri Lanka Archive of Contemporary Art Architecture and Design. We had two days of programs. The first day Gill Juleff, University of Exeter introduced the project team accordingly the participants also introduced themselves about their interest on heritage. Ruth Young University of Leicester and Hashini Haputhanthri ICES Colombo did their contribution to understand the ethics and morals through their talks.  We had a lot of discussions on the readings and finally separated as groups and argued more about different variety of heritage such as, Built Heritage- than the top 10(the top 10 means the very obvious heritage sides), Social Heritage, Working Heritage, Cultural Heritage, Entertaining and unexpected Heritage. In the end each groups had submitted their own idea to do a research. Also suggested the routs/ place for the heritage walk to do the next day.

As planed the second day was the final day as well. In the morning all of the team gathered in the Old Divisional Secretariat Building which is in the town area of Jaffna. And started to walk from there also guided well by each members of the groups. A lot of things had reminded through the history of the heritage sides. Some people talked through the history of war, and some talked in a religious view and some suggested some ideas to take an immediate actions to save the side from the hesitation of people. Finally the walk came to the end with a visit to the press where they still have the old Block printers. We connected that with the working heritage as well.

In the end all of us gathered again at the archive and discussed about the advantages and the challenges of the walk and the overall project. It was really useful to talk about the future plans to save the heritage sides as young people. The first thing we suggested was ‘Gaze’. It means the look with a specific aim to do something (in a good way) with the object or place (The sides) what we see. Gaze also let the viewer to make question on it and the questions push to find out the answer through the history. “Through the talks a lot of places which we think in the past just a place became and important place like a monument” one commented this. Some people said that they could hear more stories about the places. Some people who came from south they commented “these are really amazing…. how long it took to realize the truth behind the stories”. Some people showed their interest to continue the visits in Jaffna In the future.  In this way the two days event was very useful to gain our knowledge about Heritage and the same time it made to think about the preservation as well.