British Council Sri Lanka champions Lankan art, supporting CAB to make its mark at Edinburgh Fringe

The British Council Sri Lanka is the Principal Sponsor behind Colombo Art Biennale’s upcoming contemporary Sri Lankan art exhibition at the famed Edinburgh Fringe titled RETURN: in Search of Stillness – from 2 August to 24 September at the Sciennes Gallery, at Summerhall. This project marks the latest venture in a prevailing partnership between CAB and the British Council, and also speaks to the British Council’s longstanding commitment to supporting the development of the arts from Sri Lanka internationally. 

Through its involvement, the British Council Sri Lanka has been integral in allowing the work of 13 emerging and established CAB artists to receive deserved recognition at what is the world’s largest and most visited arts festival – an opportunity that will boost the prominence of and create opportunities for the Sri Lankan arts as a whole.

The British Council has an enduring heritage in Sri Lanka with its first office being established in 1949, one year after independence. In those early decades the arts played a vital role in transforming the engagement between Britain and Sri Lanka, from colonial to cultural. For example, many older Sri Lankans cite the British Council as the place where they developed their love of British film, whilst others remember British Council Shakespeare performances as helping them to understand the texts being studied at school.

Today the British Council sees its role as that of an advocate for expanding the promotion and investment in the Sri Lanka’s arts culture. Across the region, interest in the arts is growing, albeit slowly. The Kochi-Muziris Biennale (India) and the Dhaka Art Summit (Bangladesh) have strong corporate, foundation, and/or private individual backing, and have been the most successful in showing that art can put cities and countries on the map heralding the immense amount of local and regional talent, and additionally, attracting tourism and generating commercial interests. 

Yet comparative to its needs, state funding for the arts across most of the region, including in Sri Lanka, stays low and corporate attention is only beginning to make significant strides. The British Council’s Arts program sees and believes in the impact that art can have on Sri Lanka, and hence supports exchanges and collaborations that connect this to relevant UK individuals and organisations and bolsters local capacities.

Colombo Art Biennale has been fortunate to have the support of British Council Sri Lanka since its inception in 2009. In 2014, the British Council brought down a component of its Homelands exhibit to be showcased as part of 3rd Biennale. It featured more than 49 works by 20 of the world’s leading British contemporary artists from the British Council Collection. This was then followed by British Council’s instrumental support in securing Assemble – winners of the prestigious UK visual arts Turner Prize – to run a critical part of the Colombo Art Biennale’s developing community engagement program in Slave Island. The program was a success, with enthusiasm from the community and Assemble to see a continuation of engagement at CAB 2018.

Regarding their motivations to get involved in CAB’s foray in Edinburgh Fringe, British Council Sri Lanka’s Arts Manager Tanya Warnakulasuriya elaborates, “This exhibition is the perfect choice for this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival which is also its 70th anniversary. The festival itself came about following the end of World War II as a way to use arts to raise the spirits of the war-torn British people. Sri Lanka’s ‘RETURN’ program shows how Sri Lanka’s artists have also used their skills and talents to chart Sri Lanka fragile peace and the inevitably rocky road to recovery. It is a poignant reminder of the power that art has to challenge, question and shine a light on the very essence of peacetime in our world today.

“It is thrilling that an estimated 98,000 visitors to Summerhall from all over the world will experience the work of some of our most talented artists this August. This is the kind of exposure that our young artists need so that they can develop their talents further in order to be recognised as global players the way other Asian artists are now being viewed. It is great to be a part of that.”

In addition to supporting CAB, the British Council also carries out programming such as its pioneering ‘Artists-in-Residence’ program for theatre companies. This program piloted by the Sri Lanka office and is now looking to be rolled out across the South Asia region potentially giving more opportunities to Sri Lanka’s theatre groups to collaborate with other South Asian theatre groups as well as the UK. British Council also supported the Workshop Players in conducting its first-ever Shakespeare in the Park.

On the music front the British Council has supported local artists in participating in the Alchemy Festival in the UK, where two years ago female DJ Sunara amazed audiences with her music and London reviews stated that ‘Sri Lanka brought an element of cool’ to the London Festival. This year Ashanthi De Alwis was invited to Alchemy and toured across the UK giving UK audiences a taste of Sri Lankan rap music and performed new collaborations with UK rap artists.