Ancient cultures, new futures: a photographic exhibition

Ancient Cultures, New Futures

Boys stand at the entrance of the Madhrasathul Noor Islamic Religious Institute in Megawatti Street, Colombo, Sri Lanka (2011). White is the colour of purity.

Ancient Cultures, New Futures

Women light candles at a Buddhist temple in Colombo, Sri Lanka (2011). It is said the flame of one candle can light a thousand candles.

Ancient Cultures, New Futures

A Muslim man threads a sewing machine in a workshop in Megawatti Street, Colombo, Sri Lanka (2011).

Ancient Cultures, New Futures

A girl and her mother sit with friends in the Mutuwal informal settlement, Colombo, Sri Lanka (2011). The girl sits on a rug, surrounded by learning materials.

Ancient Cultures, New Futures

The Venerable Batapola Nanda Thero and Professor Suresh Sundram stand in conversation at the first national postwar reconciliation forum in Sri Lanka. This forum was organized by Global Reconciliation (2012).

Ancient Cultures, New Futures

A student cricketer puts on his gear at a Global Reconciliation sporting clinic in Colombo, Sri Lanka (2010).

Ancient Cultures, New Futures

Brothers play in the grounds of the Foundation of Goodness preschool, Seenigama, Sri Lanka. The backdrop features both Sinhalese and Tamil script.

A child with Buddhist background plays with others at the Foundation of Goodness preschool, Seenigama, Sri Lanka, framed by a mural of the Christian story of Noah’s Ark (2010). There are many different stories about the beginning of the world, and she knows them.

Ancient Cultures, New Futures

The mosque in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, has controversially been rebuilt in the no-rebuild zone after the tsunami. The community effort brought together Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians (2010).

Ancient Cultures, New Futures

A man sits in a derelict building opposite a mental hospital. The area used to be a restricted Sinhalese military zone in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, where he previously could not have gone (2011).

Ancient Cultures, New Futures

Dancers from the K Barthy Vidyalayam School, Sri Lanka, preparing to welcome a Global Reconciliation delegation from Australia (2011).

Ancient Cultures, New Futures

A man walks to work on an ordinary day in Kandy, Sri Lanka (2011). Not far away in a common compound, both Buddhists and Muslims worship in an interconnected temple and mosque.

Ancient Cultures, New Futures

Boys play basketball in Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka (2011). One of the boys was previously reviled as a homeless outsider.

Ancient Cultures, New Futures

Mullaitivu Church, Sri Lanka, where hundreds of people were killed in the 2004 tsunami (2011).

Ancient Cultures, New Futures

Sivathas Sivasubramanium walks on the Mullaitivu-foreshore, Sri Lanka, part of the Global Reconciliation deep end journey (2011).

Boys talk to each other at the Oddusuddan School near Mullaitivu, Sri Lanka, (2011). They remember a period when they and their parents fought in a war. 

Girls wear the uniforms of the Oddusuddan School near Mullaitivu, Sri Lanka (2011). In an earlier period, they wore the uniforms of a war that began before they were born.

A woman and her son inspect a bombed-out house on the road to Jaffna, Sri Lanka (2011).

Adam Goodes, 2014 Australian of the Year, talks with the local cricket coach in Seenigama (2010). The language of sport crosses all boundaries.

Vedda Chief Uruwarige Wannila Aththo meets a reconciliation delegation in Dambana in the Badulla District (2010). The Vedda people are indigenous to Sri Lanka, and lived there long before the ancestors of those who fought the civil war first came to the island. Reconciliation needs to take many paths.

The son of the Vedda Chief in Dambana in the Badulla District (2010). Youth hold the promise of the future.

Opening Night Drinks: Thursday 9th October at 7pm
Raglan Street Gallery, 14 Raglan Street, North Melbourne

Sri Lanka has passed through one of the most tragic periods of war and division in its long history. Despite undoubted progress with economic reconstruction, the painful memories and the reality of continuing conflict remain everyday realities.

This exhibition seeks to contribute to the much-needed process of healing by supporting dialogue and reconciliation across the boundaries of continuing difference. Rather than focusing on the familiar images of war, destruction and personal suffering, or on post-war reconstruction and the growing material wealth, it seeks out ambivalent images that encapsulate both the challenges facing the country and the hopes carried by all for a different kind of future.

These images carry the weight of the past—negative and positive—but they also speak of warm encounters, creative confrontations, and powerful new possibilities. The exhibition is organised around the all-pervading presence of the physical and cultural beauty of Sri Lanka, of the trauma to which all—old and young—have been exposed, and on the struggle to emerge triumphantly from the past of sadness and pain. Four themes form its structure: the all-pervasive, rich and diverse, ancient culture; the unfinished, sad and poignant legacy of the conflict; the determined re-establishment of everyday life; and the struggle for a world of renewed hope and shared achievement.