Need for Sri Lanka’s 200+ cultural centres to reflect nation’s pulse

For the culture of a nation to thrive it has to be alive – in the hearts and practice of citizens

The Harmony page has commenced a series of conversations with artistes and those connected with themes of culture, on the need to make cultural centres around the country to actively reflect cultural heritage and artistic innovation. 

We spoke to senior professor in the Faculty of Architecture in the University of Moratuwa, and former Director for the Centre for Heritage and Cultural Studies as well as the National Design Centre Prof. Nimal de Silva who designed the cultural centres in 1971 and to Sarath Perera, Chairman Visual Arts Advisory Committee of the Arts Council, who is senior Lecturer of the Department of Painting, Faculty of Visual Arts, University of Visual and Performing Arts.

Their views on how they perceive the concept of culture and their opinion on how the cultural centres should be revived, are quoted as below.

We narrate here the comments of Prof. Nimal de Silva:

“Culture is a concept that reflects the heartbeat of a nation and ranges across many dimensions. It is not just art and crafts that are culture. Cooking is an integral component of a nation’s culture. Does anyone know today the authentic way of making a kiri hodi, according to the Sinhala culture? Culinary art is therefore a significant part of the culture of a country, reflecting all of its diverse people. Traditional medicine and other facets such as visual arts, architecture, rural spiritual or belief based practices are all segments of culture. The full list of the categories one can cover under culture is exceedingly extensive.”

“In 1971, that is 51 years ago, I was working as an assistant architect at the Department of Buildings. One day officers from the Department of Cultural Affairs had a discussion with us and said they intend to build 45 cultural centres in different parts of the country to activate provincial cultural activities. They said they can give only Rs. 50,000 for each centre. This was a time when an egg was Rs. 12 cents. Those days Rs. 50,000 was a reasonable sum. The centres were to provide a common space for masters and students to learn and perform traditional arts, singing, music, drawing, dancing, drama, mat weaving, etc. The buildings were to be handed over to the local authorities for administering and maintenance.

“To understand, learn, perform, master and to bring tradition to modernity, government patronage is necessary but there is no need to depend on that. It is important that ordinary citizens own their culture and seek different ways to protect and promote it. The private sector role becomes very important. Arts and culture should be made part of the mainstream and integrated as such. Arts and culture were never isolated entities – they were part of the fabric of society and an active element of the local economy. This came about naturally and without excess commercialisation at the cost of the artistic value.”

“In my lifetime I could see that the original intention of the cultural centres were not put into practice fully. This is what should be rectified now, even at this late stage.” 

Below are the comments of Sarath Perera, Chairman Visual Arts Advisory Committee of the Arts Council:

“Having taught young artistes for the past 35 years I know that if students from rural areas leave Colombo, then that is the end of their artistic career. It is in fact very tough for artistes to make a career purely on art. The cultural centres must focus and revive the stimulating experience that takes place when there are diverse artistic elements under one roof. Musicians and artistes should have a place to showcase their work. Tourism should be linked to such centres. This is how China has modelled its tourism industry to showcase the work of their artistes.”

“Each cultural centre could have a gallery for visual arts to display the work of young artists and tourism related institutions could coordinate with the industry operators to ensure that these centres are promoted for tourists to visit, and thereby provide a market for cultural products.”

The above comments in quote are of the two veteran artistes who have witnessed in their life the struggle of many young artistes who often age and die without recognition. Prof. Nimal de Silva has in his lifetime seen the demise of many knowledge and craft traditions. Two examples are in the field of traditional medicine and gems and jewellery. For example the traditional knowledge of making eyewear as was done in the times of kings and polishing gems the way it was done in ancient times are almost fully died out. This knowledge was not conserved and we have lost it. Here we can see how traditional knowledge are part of what we call culture. 

The death blow to the heritage knowledge based culture of the nation came with colonisation which re-shaped the minds of the masses and it is this mind that we have today which is one of the reasons why most the cultural centres remain unused. 

In some places they are transformed as teaching centres – teaching standard school subjects. In some other places the centres are totally abandoned. 

For the culture of a nation to thrive it has to be alive – in the hearts and practice of citizens. We saw a spark of this still present in the country when at the onset of the COVID virus in early 2020, despite lack of formal promotion of traditional medicine, people queued up at the Beheth Badu Kade (traditional medicine outlets). 

This reflects that whatever alien practices we have adopted out of line with the culture of the land such as poisoning the earth for profit, that the base for re-learning the vicissitudes of culture exists.

Art, poetry and music are but extensions of the culture of the lived in experience of an ancient civilisation such as this land. The sung poetry associated with farming, boating (oru), the knowledge of constructing the farming items and the building of these boats are today lost in the chapters of history. The younger generation neither know nor care about these. The school teachers are equally clueless. It is in this practical context that we are having a discourse on reviving the cultural centres around the country. 

In pre-colonial times the economy was a holistic component of the culture and this is the thread that has got entangled today.

Note: In the weeks to come the Harmony page will expand on this introductory vignette to continue to bring about an active discourse on the theme of reviving the dormant cultural centres across Sri Lanka.