Report by Anoli Perera

The Theertha International Artists’ workshop commenced as scheduled on the 3rd of September 2001. The workshop was held over a period of 14 days, ending with two public events- the Critical Dialogue Day on 16th September 2001 at Lunuganga, Bentota and the Open Day at the Barefoot Gallery, Colombo on 18th September 2001.

International artists who participated in the workshop were Lee Wen (Singapore), Tripura Kashyap (India), Santiphap Inkong-Ngam (Thailand) and Jamal Shah (Pakistan). Sri Lankan participation included Jagath Weerasinghe, Bandu Manamperi, G. R. Constantine, Chandraguptha Thenuwara, Anoli Perera, S. Jeyashankar, Ravibandu Vidyapathi, and Pradeep Chandrasiri .

Workshop Proceedings:

The workshop activities started with the arrival of participating artists at Lunuganga on 3rd September. The first day was spent on familiarizing with the workshop site.

The first session of discussions started with artist Jagath Weerasinghe giving an informal introduction of the workshop theme which was followed by an exchanging of views about the idea of working within a particular theme. The theme that was initially given for the workshop was “gender and its constructions and representations”. Subsequent sessions of formal and informal discussions brought out various views about the workshop theme and its pros and cons in the context of the collaborative aspect of the workshop.

There were concerns by artists about working according to a theme on gender and at the same time working towards collaborative projects. It was felt that artists would find it quite a challenge working on collaborative work and would be doubly burdened if they have to think about working in terms of a complex theme such as ‘gender’. Different implications of having such a workshop theme was placed in context, debated and analyzed. The artists also felt that the workshop site was a unique space and to work within a theme ignoring the site would be a difficult task. Some of the artists felt that the site itself offered vast possibilities of ideas for work, including gender related work. At certain moments, intense debates and exchange of ideas developed around the opinions expressed at these initial discussions.

These informal meetings also clarified the expectations of the workshop. They were also able to bring out to the open the diverse working methods and backgrounds of artists as well as their concerns and anxieties of working in workshop situations. There were varied opinions on art as intervention and art as collaboration.

Time slots were allocated for presentation of artists’ work to the audience (the other artists). The works were shown on slides, video, and printed documents and through live performances. Seeing each other’s work let artists get a sense of the diverse working processes, methods and the personal histories of participating artists. These definitely helped to break the ice between artists and initiate the process of connecting with each other for possible collaborative work.

During the first week, the artists let themselves get familiar with the workshop site and identify the potential spaces in the estate. It was interesting to observe how different artists relate to one specific site through their various histories. One such site was the space where cinnamon trees were grown. Gradually, artists began to work with each other and in the process they integrated the landscape with their work, sometimes through their shared histories and at other times by giving it interpretive meanings. The cinnamon grove, dried up lake, paddy field, a mud filled pond, the layered terrace, kitchen, glass room, the bar, patio with cement table and the open lawn became various work sites. The work material sometimes became the throwaway cinnamon sticks, ropes, mud, bamboo, old newspapers, broken pottery as well as drum beats, music from various origins, fire and the human body itself.

Two traditional ritual performance groups were invited to the workshop. The Batticaloa ritual performance group from the Tamil-dominated eastern town of Batticaloa spent two days with the workshop artists. The group did a number of ritual performances during their stay. A collaborative work with a workshop artist also took place during this time. The Sanni Yakkuma group, a traditional low country Sinhala exorcist ritual dance group staged an exorcist ritual. The idea behind inviting these groups were to expand parameters of the debates on boundaries of art as well as to go beyond the notions of established art practices. Some established art practices such as the ritual performances had a healing and curative aspect in the traditional context which went beyond the notion of mere art. The performances of both ritual groups brought to surface cultural anomalies of stereotypical gender representation through their elements of cross-dressing. They gave a genealogical connection and a historical antecedent to performances done by artists during the workshop which gave strength to their works. The ritual performances also brought in the diverse aspects of their peripheral cultural perspectives and consumption that were primarily based on ethno-religious and regional differences in the case of both the Batticaloa group as well as the Sanni Yakkuma group.

More than fifteen of collaborative and individual works emerged during the workshop.

Artwork:

The work “the Story of the Cinnamon Tree” was a collaborative work by 9 artists. It included 2 installations and five performances that got interwoven into one large work that produced different layers of meaning. Jagath Weerasinghe, Tripura Kasyhup, Santiphap Inkong-Ngam, Anoli Perera, Lee Wen, G. R. Constantine, Bandu Manamperi, Pradeep Chandrasiri, Ravibandu Vidyapathi collaborated in the project.

A book art was produced by Jagath Weerasinghe as an extension to the work “Story of the Cinnamon Tree”.

A performance/ installation work called “The Space in Between” was another collaborative work among 3 artists. The performance by Thripura Kashyup was choreographed on a low square table under a large candle lit chandelier surrounded by a lamp installation by Anoli Perera and to the vocal music of Ravibandu Vidyapathi.

The “Linga link” was a performance by Ravibandu Vidyapathi as an interpretive dialogue with the installation work “Camouflaged Linga” by G. R. Constantine attempt to the installation of a camouflaged linga by G. R. Constantine. Camouflaged linga itself was an interpretative commentary of a male dominated activity.

Jamal Shah constructed a large cage out of bamboo and fabric titling it ‘Pinjra’ within which a dance duet choreographed by Tripura Kashyup and Ravibandu Vidyapathi was performed. It became a participatory work when artists were invited to draw the moving figures of the performers on the cloth that covered the cage. The dance work was titled ‘Chasing Shadows”. An interactive element was also included in the work Pinjra where artists were invited to take part in story telling.

A dance duet was choreographed by Ravibandu Vidyapathi and Thripura Kashyup for a video installation by Chandraguptha Thenuwara called “Moon and Ladder”.

The two dried up ponds in the estate inspired Lee Wen to make a boat out of mud, which he then filled with water. These site-specific works became a reflection of the time when Sri Lanka was undergoing a server drought, and therefore a shortage of water.

Bandu Manamperi did a performance work titled ‘Homecoming’ which articulated a critical narrative of the gender relations of the various aspects of marriage, starting from the marriage ritual itself to the male/female gender roles within marriage. Bandu Manmperi also collaborated in a performance work called ‘ Linga as Phoenix’ with G. R. Constantine, which commented on the gender and sexuality of the human male.

Pradeep Chandasiri’s video work titled ‘The Thug’ interrogated the socio-cultural constructs of chauvinism that get manifested in all aspects of society. Chandasiri’s work provided a point of inspiration for Jagath Weerasinghe’s book art. While it reconstructed the myth of the character called ‘thug’, in Chandasiri’s work it also situated that character historically.

A room, which had glass walls, became the site for a duet dance performance for Santhiphap Inkong-Ngam and Tripura Kashyup.

A large installation was made by Chandraguptha Thenuwara titled ‘Media Wall’ using newspaper and fencing mesh that was placed at the entrance to Jagath Weerasinghe’s installation ‘Archeology of Today’. ‘Archeology of Today’ consisted of a dinner table of the present day providing seating arrangements for two individuals placed in a room full of broken terracotta pots, which gave one a perception of an archeological site.

S. Jeyashankar’s work titled ‘Suicide by Consent’ gave a critical commentary on the contemporary consumer culture where Coke bottles and plastic waste becomes the marker of its overconsumption. He used throw-away plastic water bottles installed on top of an abandoned well and a large replica of a Coke bottle which he burned at the end of the performance relating to the work.

Two guest artists Anura Krishantha and K. Pushpakumara responded to the workshop environment by creating two works. Anura Krishantha transformed an empty mud pond into a flowering bed by installing nearly one hundred flowers made by him with silver paper and cloth which was called ‘Flowers in the Mud”. K. Pushpakumara installed a large canopy of white canvas over a paddy field appropriately titled “Canopy over the Filed” which explored the idea of unison with nature by bringing in architecture into nature.

Events:

A Critical Dialogue Day was held at Lunuganga on 15th September where and audience of 150 people participated. It was a daylong event where performances were held throughout the day. The public was invited to interact with the artists, initiate dialogue and react to the work produced at the workshop site. Large groups of artists, students, and others from the art community attended this event. Past work that was done during the workshop was filmed and was screened for the audience to see the work progress of the workshop.

An Open Day event was held at the Barefoot Gallery in Colombo on 18th September 2001. Approximately two hundred people attended the event. The audience included art students, artists, art patrons, diplomats, members from cultural institutes and art interested public. Two video films were shown on large format screens. The works that were able to be transported to Colombo were re-installed in the Barefoot Gallery. Tripura Kashyup and Ravibandu Vidyapathi presented a performance to the lamp installation done my Anoli Perera.

On 19th September the foreign artists Tripura Kashyup, Jamal Shah, Santiphap Inkong-Ngam and Lee Wen visited the Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts where the students were able to meet the artists and engage in dialogue. The final year and passed out students of Vbhavi Academy of Fine Arts and the final year students of the Institute of Aesthetic Studies were invited to the Critical Dialogue Day and the Open Day events giving them opportunity to make connections and engage in discussions with the artists.

A discussion and a screening of the film of the workshop events was held on 10th November 2001 at the Sapumal Foundation where an audience of art students, critics and other interested individual took part and engaged in a critical dialogue with the artists who took part in the workshop. The discussion started with the viewing of the video film of the works presented at the workshop. This event was organized by Theertha International Association with the Vibhavi Academy of Fine arts at the Sapumal Foundation.

Media Coverage:

There was extensive coverage of the workshop by the press and electronic media. The ‘Sunday Observer’, the newspaper which has the largest circulation in Sri Lanka carried an extensive account of the workshop on 26 August 2001 and again on 30 September 2001. The ‘Island’ gave an account of the workshop on 10th September 2001 while ‘Explore Sri Lanka’, a leisure magazine, which has a substantial readership, carried an extensive account on their September 2001 issue. During the workshop through the radio channel ‘Sirasa’ regular announcements were done about the workshop, and on 29th September a program on the workshop activities were shown on the television channel ‘Sirasa’. The Young Asian Television, a television company focussing on Asia presented a half-hour program on the workshop on ‘Channel Eye’ (state owned television station) in their weekly art and culture program in December 2001 and April 2002.