A short story in three parts
London, 2019/2020 (in progress...)
 

Each: 45 x 30 cm

Set of 4 frames, with 2 vintage photos and 2 cutouts from newspaper mounted on white board

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A short story in three parts touches on a highly complex subject and features images and newspaper articles from the first half of last century. In particular, the set of frames tells the story of Cyril Trigger and his family who, in proper colonial manner, used to live and travel around Asia with British privileges. This material was found in a flea market in London and shows the "naive" racist attitude underlying not only the content and notes behind the photos, but also the linguistic choices in the journals’ articles, where Shri Lanka is of course still referred to as Ceylon and the journey of the protagonists is a matter of local gossip. 

 

What the work tries to point at by the means of textual insertions - also referring to the institutional artistic development of the country such as it's first international biennial - is that, still now, most of the goods exported from Sri Lanka are branded as coming from Ceylon. This creates a short-circuit between the overcoming of the country’s colonial oppression and the expedients used to make its products appealing on the global market.