Reverberations and Reading in Residence: In Conversation with Omer Wasim and Thisath Thoradeniya
Acts of reading a landscape and its histories demand a proximity to and a negotiation with textures and details that are at times unobvious, making it a necessity for readers to listen with intention. In the foreground of the pandemic and its restrictions, the Tandem Residencies at Colomboscope brought together local and international artists through April–May 2021, creating avenues for artistic exchange and processual exploration in different regions of the island. The first duo in residence, Pakistani artist Omer Wasim and Sri Lankan artist Thisath Thoradeniya travelled across Colombo, the Jaffna Peninsula, Mullivaikkal, Ritigala and Hiriketiya, studying registers of memory, history and conflict through botanical species and the colonial legacies that mar the landscape. In an intertwining of their practices, Wasim and Thoradeniya wove resonances and readings into their enquiries, working with the grain towards more gradual processes of unpacking their surroundings and their situated encounters.
Looking at micro-traversings in the landscape of Sri Lanka, Wasim and Thoradeniya’s residency interactions with environmentalists, horticulturists, artists and writers also brought to light the possibilities of paying attention to the violence of erasure and the nuances that could further activate their modes of gathering narratives. Wasim’s practice delves into the tactilities of witnessing residing in the more-than-humanness of plants. Thoradeniya’s art situates itself amid family and state histories, ideological and methodological transformations, looking particularly at narratives around salt, its use and gradual weaponisation. As individual practitioners following the temporalities being made available to them, they sought to address and develop conjunctions in their ways of seeing, acknowledging the sensitivities required when one engages with histories that are not necessarily one’s own. Thinking deeply about care and the kinds of communities that can be fostered through it, both artists found intersections and parallels within each other’s practices that allowed extensive room for contemplation and conceptual growth.
In conversation with Omer Wasim and Thisath Thoradeniya, Annalisa Mansukhani discusses the nature of collaboration that emerged, the fluencies and fluctuations of their co-making rhythms and the sites of remembrance to which they chose to respond.
(Featured Image: Omer Wasim and Thisath Thoradeniya's Open Day, part of the first Tandem Residencies at Colomboscope. Encouraged to present processes as part of the display, they conveyed a sense of their travels and encounters across the island as well as the affective nature of their individual practices in conversation with each other.)
Recorded on 4 February 2022.
To read more about this year's edition of Colomboscope, please click here, here, here and here.
