Sri Lanka
Tales of heroism, re-building and socio-economic development after devastation are familiar narratives of war and victory, often told from the vantage point of victors. In these tales the human cost of conflict is rarely highlighted. Sri Lanka’s ethno-political and religious history is complicated. It is further complicated by a protracted war of nearly three decades. This series of exhibits draws a thread between the work of three organisations, highlighting the need to collect and archive outsider narratives in order to contest single narratives that impact rights, peace and justice of those that remain.
Freeing one’s own voice from that of another in the very act of telling one’s own lived experience, is a democratisation of truth. It is a claim on one’s own life, agency and place in Sri Lanka’s historical narrative. In the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s protracted 26-year conflict, memory plays a crucial role. As humanity has seen countless times, the past is often mobilised in the service of political agendas and ideologies. The victors often glorify their wars to legitimise and cement their role as master and arbiter of historical narrative. Those narratives that exist outside of this space, are often erased or fade into obscurity. When people find their voice to tell their own histories, the ‘official’ narratives become more than a linear series of events, but an interpretation of how one felt as a witness to those events. The Herstories Project, The International Centre for Ethnic Studies and the Institute of Social Development share projects that focus on the lived experience of ordinary individuals to bring hidden narratives to life.
Herstories
The Herstories Project was one of the first archival initiatives of its kind following the end of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009. Because of the manner in which the war ended – a definitive military solution rather than a peace process, to a conflict rooted deeply in social, political and religious tensions – a masculine lens of heroism dominates the ‘official’ narrative of history. Conducted together with Viluthu Centre for Human Resources Development, before an official transitional justice mechanism was adopted in SL in 2015, it was a pioneering project in public history archiving with 285 women’s stories collected between 2012-2013. It is a deliberate effort to feminise the historical narratives of war and to give voice to marginalised histories of women’s experiences in conflict. The very word history highlights a male-centric narrative prioritising ‘his’-story This project is an attempt to complete the narrative of history with ‘her’-story. As an archive, the stories go beyond the women themselves as they speak of their children and family members lost to war; their hopes for their remaining children; the stories of their villages and their neighbours. It transcends boundaries and divisions to highlight a fundamental sense of humanity. They are stories of displacement, disappearance, death, loss but they are also stories of survival, hope, resilience and courage.
Exhibits
Picturing Coexistence
The International Centre for Ethnic Studies uses comics as a means of creating a space for individuals to reflect on, articulate and narrate their (sometimes inexpressible) experiences, prejudices or understanding of coexistence as it relates to the ‘other’. They contest the narrative that in post-war Sri Lanka, communities are divided irrevocably. They speak of coexistence at community level as the norm and not the exception, until external actors deliberately create disharmony for their own gain. These first-hand experiences, documented in the form of comics, are powerful visual tools for change, where individuals become both storytellers and agents of change who help others recall and critically evaluate their own feelings of suspicion, insecurity and desire for co-existence. The comics in the project are introspective, self-critical and reflect multiple experiences of both discrimination and coexistence. One of the common themes that cuts across them is that discrimination is based on ignorant assumptions about others’ beliefs and values. Conversely, coexistence as the norm rather than the exception at community level until and unless they are disturbed by external actors is another theme that cuts across them. The comics were developed in partnership with World Comics India
Exhibits
Migration and Return
This oral history project by the Institute of Social Development captures stories of re-migration and internal displacement of estate-sector Tamil communities. In order to understand how centuries after forced migration as indentured labour from India, statelessness, systematic discrimination and poverty shape their politics, identity and place in Sri Lankan society. These stories of migration are rarely heard even within the narrative of the plantation sector; they are even less common in the narrative of Sri Lanka’s conflict narrative. This exhibit traces the history of migration through three stories of (re)migration.
Exhibits
