Shadow Scenes draws together over 41 visual arts practices from across Sri Lanka and internationally as part of the multidisciplinary arts festival Cinnamon Colomboscope 2015.
The curatorial approach commences from narratives and textures of historical experience that have characterised the Rio complex in Slave Island (Komnannya Veediya), an erstwhile hotel and cinema in the centre of Colombo's commercial district, since its inception in the mid-1960s. Rising from the shadows of the Black July riots of 1983, that culminated into decades of Civil War, the Rio has remained a ‘living ruin’ and a time capsule within the city’s consciousness. This exhibition presents works in a range of mediums across the 7-storey building charting an atmosphere foregrounding aspects of urbanization, colonial legacy, cultural identity and communal memory, while undertaking a cinematic reading of modernity as a resonant field of violence. Endemic politics across the North-South axis of this island and the world at large are actively re-considered within the framework of Shadow Scenes as an organic and temporary architecture of ideas and possibility.

21-30 August 2015, Opening 21 August (4-6pm), Daily 10-6pm
Organised by EUNIC Sri Lanka with several partners and supporters.

Contributors include Bani Abidi, Ruwangi Amarasinghe & Sunara Jayamanne, Sven Augustijnen, Kavan Balasuriya, Rathin Barman, Muvindu Binoy, Asvajit Boyle & Lalindra Amarasekara, Pradeep Chandrasiri, Clark House Initiative, Godwin Constantine, Pedro Gómez-Egaña, Liz Fernando, Camille Henrot, International Alert, Susanne Kriemann, Isuru Kumarasinghe, Janananda Laksiri, Danushka Marasinghe, Alexandra Navratil, Alek O., Alain Parizeau & Shamalee de Silva Parizeau, Mahen Perera, Deborah Philip & Dhanushka Gunathilake, Agnieszka Polska in collaboration with Witek Orski, Pala Pothupitiye, Pakkiyarajah Pushpakanthan, Mahbubur Rahman, Jimmy Robert, Anri Sala, Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan, Lucy Skaer, Mika Tennekoon, Thavarasa Thajendran, Pradeep Thalawatta, Chandraguptha Thenuwara, Chinthaka Thenuwara, Thujiba Vijayalayan, Mariyathevathas Vijitharan, Hajra Waheed, Jagath Weerasinghe, Susanne M. Winterling

Curators: Natasha Ginwala & Menika van der Poorten

http://srilanka.eunic-online.eu/?q=content/cinnamon-colomboscope-2015