Contesting Identities: In Conversation with Minal Naomi Wickrematunge

Sri Lanka is a multicultural society with a complex history of ethnic, religious and linguistic communities cohabiting with each other. The origins of the Sri Lankan Civil War can be traced back to government sanctions in the 1950s. In an attempt to marginalise the Tamil-speaking community, an Act of Parliament in 1956 announced Sinhala as the country’s only official language. This act was followed by anti-Tamil pogroms. In 1983, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) began an insurgent movement and demanded their own state in the north of Sri Lanka. After almost thirty years of infighting, the Civil War came to an end in 2009. In 2019, a series of suicide bombings, termed the Easter Sunday Attacks, were aimed at churches and luxury hotels in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa. Resulting in the deaths of approximately 259 people, the attacks were later attributed to the extremist militant group National Thowheeth Jama'ath. This led to widespread discrimination against the Muslim community in Sri Lanka. In both the Civil War and the 2019 Easter Attacks, the actions of extremist groups were extended to the larger ethnic and religious communities that they belonged to. Understanding the inherent injustice of generalising and, thus, marginalising whole communities, local artists have often expressed their solidarity and highlighted interconnections between the diverse communities of the country. 

Minal Naomi Wickrematunge is an emerging mixed media artist in Sri Lanka who explores ethnic, religious and linguistic identities that often alienate individuals in multi-ethnic locations. This practice of examining contesting identities began when she discovered her own family history consisted of a mixed background of Sinhala, Burgher and Tamil roots. In this conversation, Wickrematunge discusses her series Tambi (2020) about her grand-uncle, Tambimuttu. She also discusses an untitled series made in the same year about Minnette de Silva. The first woman architect to be certified by the Asian Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), de Silva is a distant relative of the artist. In both series, Wickrematunge works with hearsay and assumptions about the two characters while using their only accessible portrait photographs. Inadvertently, she depicts the uniqueness of Tambimuttu and de Silva and what made them “Sri Lankan” beyond their ethnicity, religion and language.

(Featured Image: "The Duality of Tambi" by Minal Wickrematunge. Sri Lanka, 2020. Ink, string, screen print on recycled paper.) 

This conversation was recorded on 3 June 2022.

In case you missed it, listen to the first part of Pramodha Weerasekera’s conversation with Minal Naomi Wickrematunge.

All images courtesy of the artist unless stated otherwise.