The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka (MMCA Sri Lanka) closed its exhibition ‘Total Landscaping’ at the end of last month. The admission free exhibition was curated by Sandev Handy and Thinal Sajeewa, and was open to the public in three rotations from September 12, 2024.
Handy said, “My hope is that the exhibition has served to reframe the idea of a landscape not only as a site of beauty, but also as a struggle, an archive of memory, and at times, a scar. The exhibition aimed to make clear that no serious history of art in Sri Lanka can be written without reckoning with the politics of land—from plantation economies to free trade zones.”
Rotation 3 of ‘Total Landscaping’
‘Total Landscaping’ explored the broad, dramatic, and stirring ways in which land has been transformed in Sri Lanka. The exhibition brought together 29 contemporary artists whose works go beyond traditional illustrations of landscapes.
Their works register the different ways in which perceptions of land have been constructed and contested. ‘Total Landscaping’ unfolded as a sequence of changing displays that elicited an all-out renegotiation of our relationships to land.
Rotation 1 of ‘Total Landscaping’, which was open from September 12 to December 1, 2024 featured artists Anomaa Rajakaruna (b.1965), Arulraj Ulaganathan (b.1992), Barbara Sansoni (1928–2022), Chandraguptha Thenuwara (b.1960), Danushka Marasinghe (b.1985), Dominic Sansoni (b.1956), Hanusha Somasundaram (b.1988), Jagath Weerasinghe (b.1954), Jasmine Nilani Joseph (b.1990), Jesper Nordahl (b.1969), Pradeep Thalawatta (b.1979), Sebastian Posingis (b.1975), Stephen Champion (b.1959), Suntharam Anojan (b.1991), Thavarasa Thajendran (b.1987) and Thisath Thoradeniya (b.1975).
Rotation 2 of the exhibition was open from December 15, 2024 to March 2, 2025. It featured Abdul Halik Azeez (b.1985), Chandraguptha Thenuwara (b.1960), Danushka Marasinghe (b.1985), Dominic Sansoni (b.1956), Jasmine Nilani Joseph (b.1990), Koralegedara Pushpakumara (b.1968), Pala Pothupitiya (b.1972), Pradeep Thalawatta (b.1979) and T. Shanaathanan (b.1969).
The final rotation of ‘Total Landscaping’, which was open from March 15 to May 29, featured Bandu Manamperi (b.1972), Danushka Marasinghe (b.1985), Deshan Tennekoon (b.1977), Isuri Dayaratne (b.1985), Laki Senanayake (1937–2021), M. Vijitharan (b.1985), Muhanned Cader (b.1966), Ruvin de Silva (b.1986), Sakina Aliakbar (b.1996), Suntharam Anojan (b.1991) and Tashiya de Mel (b.1991).
Handy said, “‘Total Landscaping’ has engaged with the work of artists who have grappled with the urgent and enduring questions of land over the past seven decades. They have done so often in the absence of formal archives. This engagement has pointed to a role that the museum must embrace, by becoming more than a container for objects. It means stepping into the role of mediating dialogue: one that must hold contested memory, not only material.”
