Cinnamon Colomboscope 2015: The Participants 

As Colombo’s biggest multidisciplinary festival “Cinnamon Colomboscope 2015” draws closer, the excitement surrounding the event is palpable, almost taste it. Daily Mirror Life caught up with the co-curators of Shadow scenes as well as some of the festivals esteemed participants.

Deshal de Mel (Talks & Literature programme participant) 

Tell us a little about your relationship with Colomboscope.

I watched a few events the first time around at Park Street Mews back in 2013. Then in 2014 I had the privilege of moderating an event with Bradman Weerakoon when we looked back at pivotal moments in Sri Lanka's post colonial history and imagined how things might have turned out had there been different outcomes at those pivotal moments. That was a lot of fun and for me personally a superb learning experience.

How does your talk relate to this year’s theme "THE CITY. IDENTITY. URBANITY."?

I'm moderating a session called "Capital Drive" where we will have a conversation about the many different economies that make up Colombo. These vary from the commercial and financial hub of the country, the large mixed-development projects to the informal economies of Pettah and the micro-economies that thrive around it. Sometimes these economies clash, but over time they have somehow co-existed and survived. The session will include Upul Jayasuriya, Chairman BOI, Sancheevan Mahendran, a longstanding Pettah businessman, and Vijay Nagaraj, a CEPA researcher. We will talk about what makes Colombo's economies tick, in spite of the seeming contradictions, and what the future holds for Colombo. (p.s. I wanted the session to be named Das Kapital, but sadly saner counsel prevailed.)

What do you think is the significance of a festival such as Colomboscope?

Colomboscope has in the past created a wonderful blend of art, culture, history, political economy, and other disciplines, which are fodder for intellectual curiosity. Most of Colombo's events tend to have a narrow focus on a particular subject area, therefore it is refreshing to experience the mélange of events that Colomboscope offers. There's a little bit for everyone, much like Colombo itself.

Madhura Prematilleke (Talks & Literature programme participant) 

Tell us a little about your relationship with Colomboscope.

Spoke on a panel on the same area of issues last year.

How does your talk relate to this year’s theme "THE CITY. IDENTITY. URBANITY."?

I would like to take up issues of urban development which are very central to this year’s theme: Development in Colombo over the last 5 years, its positives and negatives, and the way forward. This would cover the ‘beautification’ of Colombo, urban development as a vehicle for political power, Hausmannization, gentrification, the question of ‘a city for whom?’, militarization of urban life and urban development, and current plans/future options where one type of marginalization (of urban dwellers) is not replaced by another.

What do you think is the significance of a festival such as Colomboscope?

Festivals such as Colomboscope are integral to making Colombo a more complete city: with a full range of social-cultural experiences.

Pradeep Chandrasiri (Exhibition participant) 

Tell us a little about your relationship with Colomboscope.

I am a first time participant. Many friends of mine are participating in this exhibition and I know lot of the people who are organizing and connected with Colomboscope. I feel like I’m in a friendly place and I look forward to meet the new foreign artists.

How does your exhibit relate to this year’s theme "THE CITY. IDENTITY. URBANITY."?

The curators have carefully arrived at a very relevant theme. My earlier works are extremely connected to this theme. My works talk about the social history of this country through a personal history.

What do you think is the significance of a festival such as Colomboscope?

This is a very important event as I see. As I know, it brings in a lot of contemporary visual art practitioners together. The exposure they get is great and something needed. For about 20 years we have been in the art scene. And international events of this nature, where artists from Sri Lanka and abroad come together, as well as the international exposure is much needed. The quality, not really the quantity, that this event is promising us is worthy of attentions that biennales, triennales and art fairs receive.

International Alert - Halik Azeez (Participant) 

Tell us a little about your relationship with Colomboscope.

I am curating a sub-exhibition within Shadow Scenes called 'My Colombo' for International Alert. I am also a speaker at one of the talks on Identity and rootedness in the city.

How does your exhibit relate to this year’s theme "SHADOW SCENES"?

The My Colombo exhibit is a part of International Alert's intervention into Urban Peace in Sri Lanka. This is an area we are working quite extensively on internationally, but haven't looked at yet here in Sri Lanka. We feel this is an ideal time to enter the conversation and join the family of organisations that are already working on this very significant issue to the city of Colombo, which is in a period of transition and change. The exhibition hopes to explore this theme and open conversations around it.

What do you think is the significance of a festival such as Colomboscope?

I think art festivals like Colomboscope help open up conversations and create new landscapes of imagination through which we can reflect on things we usually take for granted, and ponder on realities 'beneath the surface of things'. The very act of having it in a location such as the Rio hotel, which is very significant to our recent history, is one way this happens.

Natasha Ginwala & Menika van der Poorten (Co-curators, Shadow Scenes) 

Tell us a little bit about Cinnamon Colomboscope 2015. What can we expect from the festival?

This August the third edition of Colomboscope hosts the largest visual arts exhibition since the festival's inception. Featuring a wide range of visual artists from across Sri Lanka and abroad with 41 contributions in mediums ranging from film, installation, drawing, photography to sound and performance taking place across the entire 7-storey building of the Rio complex which includes the cinema and erstwhile hotel looted and damaged during the Black July riot of 1983. Many of the international artists from United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium and Norway are exhibiting their artistic work in South Asia for the first time. We have also invited artists from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh with support from the Gujral Foundation, thereby strengthening a cultural dialogue within the region.

What is the significance of this year’s theme: "Shadow Scenes"?

Shadow Scenes is experimental and temporal in character, the works within this large-scale show will provide viewers with diverse narratives and cultural experiences, dealing with aspects of urbanity, cultural identity, collective memory and colonial modernity, the past is interrogated from the critical lens of our shared present and the ambiguous nature of imagined futures. Shadow Scenes considers the experience of being at an intersection where the recent history of war and its impact on civil society is still unraveling while the city of Colombo itself is transforming at rapid levels in areas of urban planning, demographic identity, gender relations and gentrification.

Why choose the Rio Hotel as a location for the exhibition?

The Rio complex has been a venue for other events hosted by the Goethe Institute recently. It is an iconic site that bears many markers of history while being situated in the centre of Colombo's commercial district with a history of migratory populations that link the Island to an expansive geography. These issues have greatly interested us as curators and played a role in shaping this exhibition. Several artists are conceiving site-responsive works within the erstwhile hotel rooms, thus bringing together the private and public realm, historical and future-based scenarios played out in a cinematic manner as an experiential field.

What were the criteria when selecting local and international artists?

We are working with artists who are constantly challenging the use of specific mediums such as film, installation, photography and performance as well as extending into combining these questions with research approaches that are practice-based, dealing with the characteristics of fiction, and at times also archival in spirit.

Interviewed by Rihaab Mowlana