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Curated by Mariyam Begum and Sulakshi Ratnayake, served to you with a dash of lime is a provocation – to acknowledge the messy contradictions of our world with joy and good humour. Borne from an observation of weighty critical discourse in art, this exhibition ventures into the idea of play and laughter as valid and often vital tools of engagement. The sweet and sour collude in this exhibition through the works of fourteen contemporary artists from Sri Lanka and its diaspora. The intent is to bring together work that takes an off-the-cuff approach to negotiate contemporary realities, functioning not as an escape but as a porous entry point into contentious conversations. Here you encounter a different kind of criticality – one that is laced with levity.
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A similar hyperbolic aesthetic is at play in Sangeeth Madurawala’s digital collages where the women appear pretty as a picture in their virtuous and virginal altars. Tussle with sacred icons, homely relics, bombs and bullets they tease the burning question – what’s a little divine intervention in the explosive theatre of gender politics?
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Gayan Prageeth
To Behold and To Cherish, 2025Gayan Prageeth celebrates our obsessions. Visualizing a mannequin in an outrageously ornate homecoming dress the artist notes our fascination with grand wedding celebrations and western traditions. The work becomes a subversive celebration of expectations to surrender autonomy within the institutions of marriage – reinforced in the present by rigid colonial expectations. -
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In imagining a swashbuckling sci-fi adventure, at once ancient and futuristic, Kumkum Fernando crafts narratives that de-centers the colonial histories of the Global South. Blending remnants of the French colonial architecture with Hindu myths and folktales the artist takes a whimsical flight, where myth and memory traverse non-linear timelines to reimagine how postcolonial histories are constructed.
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Playing off the bright and catchy language of advertisements and billboards, Hashan Cooray taps into the excitement and novelty it offers to comment on the enmeshment between consumerism and free will. In his work a jigsaw puzzle that is more unresolved than solved becomes a quip on the products we consume and covet, defining how we choose to shape our identities.
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Mahesha Kariyapperuma takes the playing card for a spin mimicking the intellectual waltz that takes place in virtual spaces. The temperamental Joker acts as a proxy for the divided opinions on uncertain economic futures and aspirations.
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Mayun Kaluthantri returns to the simple joy of clay—the subtle thrill of feeling it yielding beneath the hand—as an act of slowing down. In a world dizzy with labels and products, hazy images of monobloc chairs and mosquito coils accompanied by light platitudes are transformed into tender relics of an effervescent childhood.
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The sweet and sour collude in the exhibition through the works of fourteen artists who operate from the in-between, oscillating between inherited traumas and self determined joy, between the mythologised homeland and belonging elsewhere and between the heaviness of crisis and the lightness of play. The act of disarming and delighting become modes for a spirited reimagination of existing structures, challenging prevailing hypocrisies, and conjuring alternate truths as they continue to resist the complexities of the here and now. With a tactical frivolity these artists arouse laughter of all kinds – a knowing snicker, a warm smile or a just good old belly laugh – reminding us of the potency of joy as both critical apparatus and healing salve.
served to you with a dash of lime: Group Exhibition
Past viewing_room
