39Broken Hands (1998/1999)
Pradeep Chandrasiri (b.1968)
Photographs
Collection the artist
First exhibited: ‘Crafty Thoughts’, Liverpool University Art Gallery, Liverpool, United Kingdom, 2001
In 1996 Pradeep Chandrasiri made an installation that included terracotta casts of his right hand. The work was shown at the artist-run Heritage Gallery in Colombo. He went on to use the same casts as part of a two-part photo-performance in 1998 and 1999. Taking up temporary residence with a Tamil friend in 1998, Chandrasiri used the house of his friend which had been damaged during the 1983 Tamil pogrom as a canvas upon which he nailed the casts of his hand. Nailing the terracotta sculptures that bore the trace of his own body to the walls of the structure, he sought to bring attention to the mindless suffering of communal violence. The nailing of the sculptures recalls in part the sacrificial crucifixion of Jesus Christ who died to save others. Months later in the following year, Chandrasiri staged a similar photograph, this time nailing the casts of his hand to the exterior of a building in Maradana following a bomb attack by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In both instances, he took photographs to document the performance. Displayed in a line, edge to edge, the six photographs do not differentiate between the circumstances, sides or specificities of their respective histories. They show instead how the impact of one event touches the next, and how in turn this performance and this set of photographs have the potential to continue for as long as communal violence remains.
Gallery 1
Home, Land, Survey, Country
3GPS Drawing: Jaffna to Delft, 9.30 am to 10.30 am, Boat, 10 Feb 2015 (2015)
Muhanned Cader (b. 1966)
4GPS Drawing: Jaffna Hostel (Kalviyankadu) to Ramanathan Academy (Maruthanarmadam), Three-wheeler, 12 km, 26 April 2012 (2012)
Muhanned Cader (b. 1966)
5GPS Drawings, England 2011, Oxford to Paddington, Train, 1.01 pm to 2 pm, 2011 (2011)
Muhanned Cader (b. 1966)
7GPS Drawing: Kudirimale to Wilpattu National Park Gate, 53km, 1.40 pm to 5.40 pm, Jeep, 7 October 2017 (2017)
Muhanned Cader (b. 1966)
8GPS Drawing: Fuengirola to Córdoba, 8.30 am to 11.18 am, Bus, 9 August 2017 (2017)
Muhanned Cader (b. 1966)
9GPS Drawing: Babaragasthalawa to Kumana campsite, 10 km, 1.15 hr, Jeep Toyota 4×4, June 2011 (2011)
Muhanned Cader (b. 1966)
16If You Boycott the Elections the Penalty Is Death, PRRA, Peoples Revolutionary Red Army, Galle (1989)
Stephen Champion (b. 1959)
17Corridors of Power: Drawing and Modelling Sri Lanka’s Tryst with Democracy (2015)
Channa Daswatte (b. 1965), Sanjana Hattotuwa (b. 1977), Asanga Welikala (b. 1976)
20Ceylon Since Soulbury Part I: A History in Cartoons by Collette (1948)
Aubrey Collette (1920–1992)
Gallery 2
Gaze, Self, Portrait
Gallery 3
Landscape / Landscapes, Territory
Gallery 4
Loss, Belief, Mourning
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