Where do we go
Gihansa Galhenage
Michaelis School of Fine Art
where do we go traces Sri Lanka’ s colonial history within tea plantations, where the branding of ‘Ceylon Tea’ entrenched violent ethnic tensions that later culminated in the Sri Lankan civil war. The sculptural form of the suitcase recurs throughout my practice as a central metaphor. These suitcases constitute a state of perpetual movement and unsettling, yet they simultaneously exist in a paradox of impracticality. Additionally, several of these suitcases are transformed into intricate theatre-scapes that house shadow puppetry. Within these ephemeral objects, shadow puppetry becomes an act of memorialisation and remembrance of suppressed histories. These shadow puppets are materialised through integral accounts of research and archival material; therefore, memory operates as a point of access where each source embodies a distinct register of remembrance. I approach the tea plantation not simply as a geographic site, but as a terrain imbued with histories of exploitative labour practices, migration, and displacement. The cultural landscape of the plantation exists as an archival and psychological space in my practice, depicting the significance of tea as both commodity and national identity. More than 7000 tea bags were used in this installation.