Kunkumam : Art exhibition in London of Sri Lanka’s War Memory

An exhibition of Sri Lanka’s war memory opens at the Harrow Arts Centre in West London.

British Tamil artist Sabes Sugunasabesan, presents Kunkumam from the 15th April till 1st May, featuring photographs, text, objects from the war zone and a film by Tilaxan Tharmapalan.

Kunkumam the crimson powder symbolises wisdom and blessings. Tamil women wear a kunkumam pottu to signify marriage and invoke love, respect and good fortune.

When their husbands die, Tamil women stop wearing kunkumam as pottu.

In 2009, when Sri Lanka’s three-decade-long civil war ended on Mullivaikkal Beach, there were 90,000 widowed women in the north and east of the island.

With the number of military casualties impacting women in the south of Sri Lanka, the figure, in total, is much higher. With this comes a life of challenges as the single head of their household and social marginalisation.

Hundreds and thousands were killed in the civil war (1983-2009) and during the uprisings led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in 1971 and the bheeshanaya or terror of 1987-1989, the occupation of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPFK) of the Jaffna peninsula between 1987-1990, multiple episodes of anti-minority violence, and over 35,000 individuals who lost their lives in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.

These do not account for nearly 100,000 persons who were victims of enforced disappearances. The effects of these wounds will undoubtedly be felt by generations to come.

The exhibition is a space to contemplate the island’s anguish and reflect on how this is felt by its people as well as its land and water. These harms and devastations cannot be separated from decades of political manoeuvring, instability and unrest, which shaped how the people of Lanka saw their country and each other.

This exhibition invites you to consider and honour these multiple losses and to share in this grief and act of remembrance.

Harrow Arts Centre, 171 Uxbridge Road, HA5 4EA
15th April-1st May : Free Entry
10am-5pm including weekends
Closed 18th, 20th and 21st April.

Kunkumam is also about exploring connections from a distance and builds on the artists previous work (The Last Walk to the Beach /2018).

Sabes travelled to Sri Lanka in August-September 2024 to prepare for this exhibition. He enacted a performance in memory of the war losses at Mullivaikkal Beach. Visitors will see the film of his performance on the TV screen.

The exhibition asks visitors to allow themselves to feel, react and respond to it. They are invited to write or draw your response to the exhibition in the visitors’ book. Those compelled to sing or perform in another way are welcome to do so.

There will be a free community workshop on the 26th of April. This will be about storytelling, photography and our relationship to the wars in Sri Lanka or elsewhere. Participants will create a

collective artwork. The collage will be displayed until the exhibition closes. Please write to
sabesrs@yahoo.co.uk for registration detail.