Beyond the Future: Papers from the Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

SESSION 1 1 : BEYOND DISSI DENCE - THE ART OF HEALI NG SPEAKER: Jagath Weerasi nghe Most of my current art is a comment and a critique, rather than a reflection , reaction or an observation of the social and cultural aspects that sustain organised violence such as crimes against the civilian population in the form of paramilitary groups and political thuggery in Sri Lanka. As such, I think it is necessary to give a brief sketch of the recent past, wh ich has been highlighted by many violent events . As the Taipei artist Jun-J ieh Wang has made it clear in h is work, Neon Urlaub - Agency version currently on show at the APT3 exhibition in the Queensland Art Gallery, violence in the form of organised crime is a global phenomenon, not an Asian thing! For the past 20 years or so Sri Lanka has been going through an extended political crisis inscribed with youth uprisings, ethn ic riots , guerrilla attacks, bomb blasts, suicide bombings and large-scale massacres. Of all the numerous pol itical problems in Sri Lanka, one that is mostly d iscussed internationally is its problem with the Tamil minority who largely l ive in the North and East of Sri Lanka, with a considerably large Tamil population still l iving in Colombo and other parts of the south . This problem , which is often inadequately conjugated as a conflict between Hindu Tamils and Sinhala Buddhists, is in fact far more complicated than a problem between two religions. It is more a post-colonial crisis than a crisis with roots in the pre-modern histories of Sri Lanka. However it must be mentioned here that the ideolog ical provisions requ ired to sustain the crisis and to mobil ise the masses are borrowed and reworked from the ancient historical narratives, constructs, myths and realities by both the Sinhala and Tam il nationalists . The problems that devastated the southern parts of Sri Lanka have been composed of two youth uprisings, first in 1 97 1 and then in 1 989. Both uprisings were suppressed with military power. The suppression of the 1 989 uprising was the most cruel and it also saw the formation of armed para-military groups. It is bel ieved that more than 60 ,000 youths were murdered between 1 989 and 1 99 1 in the south alone. The number of Tamil youths killed in the north by the Sri Lankan armies and the Tamil militants, the LTTE themselves , remain largely uncounted . The number of casualties in the Sri Lankan army and in the LTTE cadre is considerable too. In addition to these, the south of Sri Lanka had seen several anti-Tamil riots, many election riots and bomb explosions. My art for the past 1 5 years can be broad ly grouped into two categories. One, as a look into my own personal history in this context of organ ised crime, and the other category as an attempt to comment on the roots and causes that sustain and justify this violence in Sri Lanka. On 3 July, 1 983 the south of Sri Lanka collapsed into a state of havoc. City streets were ablaze. Thousand of Tamil houses and shops were either attacked , looted or burnt. Hundreds of innocent civilian Tam ils were murdered and thousands more were herded i nto temporary refugee camps over the course of a couple of days. The victims of this violence were the Tamils that lived in the southern parts of Sri Lanka. The incident that triggered off these riots was the killing of th irteen Sinhala soldiers in the north by LTTE Tamil guerrillas. This news was presented to the publ ic in the south who were already in a h ighly-charged atmosphere of nationalism and patriotism that amounted to extreme racism . I wou ld argue that a majority of the Sinhalese-Buddhists were caught in this trap of national ism and racism in the early 80s which received much support and encouragement from the people in power then. During the early hours of the riots I myself was caught in this trap psychologically. For the first time in my life I realised that an alien space was infiltrating my mind with the lure of racist thoughts. The next ten years of my l ife I spent trying to understand this: how could it be that I may have 1 65