Venues, each with a different rhythm for Colomboscope
Rhythm Alliances, the ninth edition of Colomboscope, opened on Wednesday, January 21 with a city-wide unfolding across four of the festival’s many venues, setting the tone for a festival attuned to listening, memory, and collective presence. Each of these interlinked venues carries a different rhythm through which histories, bodies, and geographies can be experienced relationally. [...]
Gal-ge: Forgotten shrine to Lanka’s guardian god
The visitor to Devundara (Dondra) inevitably visits the Vishnu Devale, the Buddhist vihara built by Parakramabahu VI and the lighthouse and the beach. Much less known is the granite structure called Gal-ge or Galgane. Located on a windswept high ground, this edifice however is the most intriguing of all given its true identity. First discovered [...]
Rebuilding schools, repeating risks: Why Sri Lanka must act now on asbestos
In the weeks following Cyclone Ditwah, across affected parts of Sri Lanka, children returned to school grounds that looked very different from before. Roofs lay twisted on the ground, classrooms were reduced to rubble, and piles of broken building materials waited to be cleared away. For many communities, the focus has understandably been on rebuilding [...]
Letters to the Editor
Educational reforms: Broader participation should have been the order of the day Today various individuals are expressing diverse opinions regarding the proposed educational reforms, which have caused significant controversy. Indeed, for the progress of a nation a sound educational policy must be in place. The empowerment of the younger generation, who are the lifeblood of [...]
Appreciations
Malli, you were and will always be my unflinching strength LAKSHMAN HULUGALLE If my brother Lakshman were alive now, he would have been 70 on January 29. I can see his face and his grimace, if I had said that in his presence. He was eternally young and full of life from the day he [...]
Rooted in history: A scholarly walk through our garden heritage
It was many years in the making but from this collaboration of three scholars – a landscape architect, an archaeologist and an architectural historian has emerged a work that presents the very distinct garden concepts that have been in evidence in this country from ancient times. ‘Gardens of Sri Lanka – 2,000 Years of Garden [...]
Revisiting Popham’s love letter to his beloved Dambulla arboretum
“Gas-Mahaththeya” he was fondly called by countless villagers around Dambulla, reflecting they saw more than an eccentric Englishman in this grand old man, who restored a barren land where, in Keats’s words, “The sedge (was) wither’d from the lake/ And no birds (sang)” into a sylvan forestland as of old… Dambulla: A Sanctuary of Tropical [...]
Simply ‘S.H. Sarath – 17 Paintings’
From January 26 – 29 (from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.), the J.D.A. Perera Gallery on Horton Place, Colombo will give space to one of Sri Lanka’s leading contemporary names in the art world – S.H. Sarath. The veteran artist’s exhibition is simply titled ‘S.H. Sarath – 17 Paintings’. These are 17 paintings done in [...]
Kapila returns with tribute to mentor
This is a tribute show. To the one who first saw the fire within him and his unquenchable longing to dance. Kapila Palihawadana returns to the stage after many moons with a tribute to his mentor – the legendary ballet teacher Oosha Saravanamuttu. The show also marks 23 years of Natanda – Kapila’s own contemporary [...]