Portfolio

a curatorial project consisting of an exhibition, publication, and a series of public programmes featuring artists sabeen omar (b. 1987), arshad hakim (b. 1992), and aruni dharmakirthi (b. 1990) (December 2023)

While rituals for each unknown, displaced, dead, and/or disappeared civilian’s “afterlife” would have been the norm according to their cultures, Machado’s photographs portray the absence of such rituals and simultaneously immortalise those that were affected by the massacre through a different "ritual" of photographic documentation…

Against vivid backgrounds of red, pink and grey lie almost life-sized figures frozen in time, often in the midst of movement. Machado explains her practice of making photograms of humans as a daring process that encourages her to experiment without a camera in sight…

In The Crucible (1953), Arthur Miller's semi-fictionalised dramatisation of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692–93, Tituba, a native American slave woman, is accused of using herbs in the forest to make a “charm” equated to “blood” to perform witchcraft, conjure the dead, and force love…

The landscape of arts and culture in Sri Lanka is facing a boost after three years of difficulties caused by the pandemic and a political and economic crisis of a scale never seen before. I have been hearing the words “revival”, “exciting”, “courageous”, “thought-provoking”, and even “too much to do, too much to see” from many…

for the Curatorial Intensive South Asia 2023, supported by Khoj International Artists’ Association and Goethe-Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan New Delhi, self-published.

While several generations of Sri Lankans experienced the war, the manner in which each did so was vastly different. The education system in Sri Lanka often erases contemporary histories of the country from the curriculum, neglecting events that occurred after independence from the British in 1948…

Sri Lankan photographer Ashini Nanayakkara’s works explore the links between architecture and photography. While travelling in Tasmania in 2017, she encountered miles of vast and desolate architecture, inspiring her to photograph urban landscapes…

“Serendib” is one of the more notable terms of Arabic and Persian origin that was used to refer to Sri Lanka during pre-colonial times. It was soon replaced by “Ceylon,” which dates back to the Arabic term “Saheelan” that was used during colonial times…

As one of the most popular and accessible mediums, how did cinema as a mode of mass cultural production respond to this socio-political context during and after the war in the country?

In Tennekoon’s experimental style—mixing claymation, stop motion and 2D animation—the colourful, highly expressive characters speak to a variety of audiences. The narration in each film is retained in the protagonist’s voice, giving them the agency to convey their own stories…

I often wonder why dust ‘settles’. Or why we expect it to ‘settle’. Is it because we forget? Is it because we stop caring? Is it because we are forced to move on by socio-political circumstances shaped by our leaders? This ‘settling’ unsettles me…

Dhilashini Karthigesu, Johann Peiris, and I spoke about our experiences in fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and archival research for the exhibition ‘88 Acres’ and the animated documentary ‘is this an architectural documentary?’ (2023) on view at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka.

Short conversations with Minal Naomi, Tashiya De Mel, and Tavish Gunasena

on the occasion of the artist’s first solo exhibition ‘The Sixth Diary’ at the Vadehra Art Gallery

at the conference ‘Beyond Theory: Mapping Feminist Practices in the Contemporary’, organized by the Museum of Art and Photography Bangalore

at the Sri Lanka Design Festival

at the conference Staging the Contemporary: The Next Generation’, organized by India Art Fair and Ishara Art Foundation

at the conference ‘Staging the Contemporary: The Next Generation’, organized by India Art Fair and Ishara Art Foundation