Finding their own ‘Becoming’
After the founders, curators and artists in 2010 dedicated themselves to "Imagining peace" in the Colombo Art Biennale (CAB), "Becoming" was chosen as the theme for this year's Biennale from February 15-19. Co-founder Jagath Weerasinghe in the exhibition catalogue posed some questions for self-reflection at the end of almost thirty years of war: "What was lost and what was gained?"… "Who lost and who gained?"…"who are we now?"
A few artists were more eloquent at this year's CAB than in 2010 in responding to these questiions.
Looking at the Sri Lankan artists, I begin with a few artists working with photography, who were highlighted this year: Dominic Sansoni, Anoma Rajakaruna and Janananda Laksiri. Dominic's photographs titled "The Jaffna Home" offered a glimpse of interiors where life goes on. Images of everyday space showed "Becoming". Dominic did not show the people living in these houses, but was able to convey many messages to the sensitive observer. His unique skill at composition with forms and colours, light and shadow, printed and woven textures on the one hand made the photography appear picturesque. The reverse question that such images evoked was, whether the persons whose living space had been captured so well were really comfortable living there?
As against "Jaffna Homes", Anoma's images conveyed other realities of post-war Sri Lanka, using multiple exposures and collage technique which made the photographs look blurred. In 'Alone in Chavakachcheri' one discovered trunks of palmyrah palms standing erect against the picturesque sunset typical of the dunes of Jaffna at dusk. Still the image was disturbing: The palms seemed to become just a set of poles. Their heads were missing. One palm seemed to have survived. The casual visitor to the north is busy photographing his or her impressions, but who notices such palms charred to death? The series was called "Remembrance". Anoma too like Dominic had captured "becoming" with her landmarks and landscapes.
The observer may have had to pick up recurring symbols in Janananda Laksiri's "Mirror Images" to get an idea of the theme. The vertical lines that punctuated the digitalized prints went back to many electric poles photographed and made into a collage. They were characteristic of any mega city in the globalized world. The electric poles were linked with a web of horizontal and diagonal wires carrying electricity. Janananda commented "hanging bats and entangled kites; and the sound is activated only when one enters the space". Many crows sit patiently on the high powered wires. They are neither disturbed by the chaos of the city, nor affected by the electric current running in the wires they sit on. Unlike the bats and kites that get entangled on the wires, crows are able to fly swiftly from one garbage dump to another.
The crow was a metaphor at the CAB 2010 too. Then the crow wore a neck tie and was piercing walls, appearing when most unexpected and commanding space.
Barbed wire seemed to be another visual metaphor at the CAB. Manori Jayasingha's "Barbed Wire Chandelier" used real barbed wire reminding us of the barbed wire cages used by the LTTE to torture their prisoners. For her chandelier Manori used barbed wire made out of gold coloured plastic too, which looked very decorative. "Barbed wire reminds us of the armed conflict, the plastic barbed wire blocks the light and casts shadows of darkness that could be perceived as being wonderful," the artist said. Koralegedara Pushpakumara in his digital prints used the barbed wire design as horizontal lines. Gold on black, black on gold, silver on black and black on silver. The design created using digital technology was beautiful at a distance.
The CAB was not positioning itself exclusively on post-war Lanka. Thisath Thoradeniya's "Flash Drum", was a remake of the giant drum that helped illuminate the intricate patterns created by electric bulbs on a Vesak pandal. A totally Sri Lankan creation, one may say. Sadly the sparks created in the real flash drum were not seen at the National Art Gallery.
Anoli Perera's "Second Skin" was perhaps the most spectacular installation at the JDA Perera Gallery. For the second time dealing with the female body shape that has to conform to standards of beauty, Anoli's mesh of elastic bands representing a tight-fitting extra large gown was exhibited more like the giant logo of an airline. A large red bird greeting the visitor at the staircase. The photographs exhibited by the side of Anoli's installation by Shirmal Silva and Dilki Perera gave multiple readings of this many-layered installation. To me the photographs were a more novel experience. The space of this room was framed by a kind of retrospective of works by Chandragupta Thenuwara. The series on mixed media "These are not white flags" he brought into the discussion in 2012 had a connotation in Sri Lanka just like the earlier "White Vans". One does not necessarily have to know the genealogy going back to Kazimir Malevich's "White on White" and "American Flag" by Jaspar Jones to come to terms with Thenuwara's artistic statement in 2012.
"An Atlas" by Pala Pothipitiya was a reworking of official government maps -a very subtle work of art using written words from popular songs and symbolic colours to demarcate areas. On one map crows seem to enjoy kiribath at a table; a metaphor easier to read and interpret. Displacement, loss of ownership of land and redefining ownership and the use of power in the process is a topic he took up.
The Colombo Art Biennale 2012 used multiple venues: The National Art Gallery, the JDA Perera Gallery, the Lionel Wendt Gallery, Park Street Mews and the Maradana Ware House, for the fringe event of COCA. The works selected by the curators showed multiple perspectives of "Becoming", the visual metaphors giving clues to changes in ideologies and trends to which we all are exposed. (The reviewer is a Professor in German
Studies at the University of Kelaniya).