The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka (MMCA Sri Lanka) will conduct 15 regional workshops in Mannar, Vavuniya, Trincomalee, Ampara, Monaragala, and Badulla districts from 5–30 November. Curated as part of the Dialogue and Civic Engagement Fellowship, the workshops are offered in partnership with the Supporting Effective Dispute Resolution (SEDR) project. Kalyani Sundaralingam, Thamilini Siththiravadivel, and Bavaneedha Loganathan, members of the Fellowship, will be conducting the workshops in Tamil and Sinhala.

Amalini De Sayrah, Project Manager at the MMCA Sri Lanka, noted that “Our three Fellows are art and cultural practitioners, with experience in using creative expression to depict difficult stories. We brought them on because we were excited to see how they would take on the work this Fellowship is meant to do.” Speaking of the Fellows’ preparation for the workshops, De Sayrah said, “They’ve had deep and thoughtful discussions around creating educational material around the three artworks,” adding, “We are looking forward to engaging with community leaders, educators and students when we take these discussions to the district, and to learning from how people respond to the artworks and the materials around them.”

Kalyani Sundaralingam will guide participants in a workshop series titled ‘Telling a Story in One Sentence’ to craft one-line stories that capture our connection to land and uncover the narratives that may hide between these lines. This workshop will interact with artist Jasmine Nilani Joseph’s (b.1990) work titled ‘DS Waiting Room’ (2024), which was specially commissioned for MMCA Sri Lanka’s current exhibition ‘Total Landscaping’.

‘Telling Stories from the Ground’ by Thamilini Siththiravadivel will guide participants in exploring narratives where the land itself becomes the protagonist. Together, participants will uncover how the stories we tell might differ from those the land holds within. Her workshop will interact with Anomaa Rajakaruna’s (b.1965) ‘No More Land’ (2024), which too was specially commissioned for ‘Total Landscaping’.

The third and final member of the Dialogue and Civic Engagement Fellowship, Bavaneedha Loganathan, will take participants on a visual journey along two roads in Sri Lanka’s hill country. The workshop, titled ‘Roots and Routes’, will include an exercise of communal storytelling to uncover the roots of our shared heritage and the routes that shape our experiences. This workshop will interact with Hanusha Somasundaram’s (b.1988) installation ‘நகரும் நிலங்கள்’ (2024), which was specially commissioned for ‘Total Landscaping’.

These workshops are curated as part of the ‘Arts4ADR’ programme hosted by the MMCA Sri Lanka in partnership with the SEDR project, funded by the European Union (EU). The SEDR project works to strengthen the effectiveness and availability of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms in Sri Lanka for communities in the Uva, Northern, and Eastern Provinces.

These workshops aim to engage local civil society, community members, and youth to increase awareness of Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms and provide tools for dialogue on the root causes of community-based conflicts, grievances, and disputes. Through commissioned artworks and arts-based methodologies, the workshops will encourage participants to explore new ways of fostering understanding, empathy, and solidarity across communities.

​Speaking on their work on ‘Arts4ADR’, the Dialogue and Civic Engagement Fellowship, as well as the workshops, Jacques Carstens, Team Leader of the SEDR project, noted that, “These district-based community dialogue workshops support the SEDR project to achieve three specific objectives. These include using artistic expression to facilitate dialogue regarding root causes of community-based conflict and disputes, increasing awareness and understanding of community-based ADR mechanisms available at a grassroots level, and encouraging the use of ADR mechanisms as pathways to access justice for local communities.”

The MMCA Sri Lanka is an education-led initiative that aims to establish a public museum dedicated to the display, research, collection, and conservation of modern and contemporary art for the benefit and enjoyment of the general public, schools, and tourists. The museum is open daily from 10 am to 6 pm (except on Poya days and public holidays) on the ground floor of Crescat Boulevard, Colombo 3, and the entrance to the museum and all its public programmes are free. Information about the museum and its exhibitions and public programmes can be found via its website, www.mmca-srilanka.org, or on Facebook at facebook.com/mmcasrilanka and Instagram at instagram.com/mmcasrilanka/.