Since 1997, barring 2005, artist, sculptor, teacher and activist Professor Chandraguptha Thenuwara has been commemorating the horrific events of July 1983 in a series of exhibitions designed to make sure that people do not forget the tragic and long lasting impacts the violence has had on the country.
An illustration from his newest collection portrays a Buddhist monk brandishing a sword while snakes, dead lotuses and barbed wire spew from his mouth, depicting the violence that flows from hate speech. "I am showing that some people can make hate speech and others cannot; the sangha can do whatever it wants," Professor Thenuwara said.
This year, he is having three memorial exhibitions marking 40 years since the events of the anti-Tamil pogrom.Delusion at Saskia Fernando Gallery will present his annual exhibition of new works in response to the sociopolitical climate in Sri Lanka. The exhibition will continue his inquiry into issues of militarism, religious extremism, conspiracy theories, Sinhala chauvinism, narrow-minded nationalism, anti-western agitation and socialism.
