Paper short abstract:

In social calamities aesthetic gain a new political and functional meaning. Based on my three art projects; ‘History of Histories’, ‘Imag(e)in home’ and ‘The incomplete Thombu’, this paper foreground the changing role of an art as an eye witness and facilitator. It also talks about how the anthropological tools and museum techniques are employed in making individual pain aesthetically appealing.

Paper long abstract:

The damaged coursed by the thirty years of political and arm conflict in its various forms on the social fabric of Sri Lankan Tamil community has led to the sense of loss of place. This compelled the individual to live in isolation, with the traumatic memories. In the absence of institutional and state support to co up with this situation, the state prohibition on the civil memorials and surveillance on the memorizing rituals on the other hand transformed the nature of conflict to a more psychological level. As in many conflict zones, in last twenty years, in Sri Lanka too art played a considerable role in collecting, depositing and imaging these experiences of pain and loss. That allows the individuals and the communities to identify recover and acknowledge physically and psychologically what it has been lost in the war. In this context, these art works reconnect individuals on their feeling of common loss. Hence in social calamities aesthetic gain a new political and functional meaning. Based on my three art projects; 'History of Histories', 'Imag(e)in home' and 'the incomplete thombu', this paper foreground the changing role of an artist as an eye witness and facilitator. It also talks about how the anthropological tools and museum techniques are employed in making individual pain aesthetically appealing. Further the paper investigates the process in which the ordinary and mundane become extraordinary.