Summerhall & Beyond Borders Autumn Seminar

Theme: The arts as a crucial weapon in the fight for democracy and as part of the peace process specifically in relation to Sri Lanka

As part of our visual arts programme in Festival 2022 Summerhall commissioned a short film “Aragalaya” on the exceptional expression of democratic activism that took place in Colombo in the early months of 2022. The video piece depicts the peaceful uprising by the Sri Lankan people that challenged and destabilised a bankrupt and vicious Government. Ordinary citizens, driven to despair by the desperate state of the country, came together in a mass movement to demand political accountability and an end to corruption. It ended one hundred days later when Aragalaya achieved the unthinkable–the removal from power of the President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. This video installation is the work of ‘The Artists of the People’s Movement’, a collective of Sri Lankan artists that includes Madhuni Alahackone, Kasun Pussewela and Ruwanthie de Chickera. The film is now a permanent part of the Summerhall collection and shows in the Summerhall café.

Aragalaya involved an explosion of creativity and the arts and the participation of all sections of the community from Buddhist monks to Catholic priests and Muslim mothers. Although the achievements of the Aragalaya have not lasted, those 100 days remain a unique period in South Asian history as an example of peaceful protest and as a symbol of unity, creativity, and political enlightenment.

The intention of the seminar is to use the Aragalaya film as a starting point to look at the ways in which artistic endeavours brought about change in Sri Lanka and enabled people power. Or not. We would be relating this to the central aim of the founders of the Edinburgh Festival in 1947 which was to heal the wounds of war through the arts. It will be important to discuss whether the example of the arts fuelling peaceful protest and democratic change can be applied to other zones of conflict. The seminar will begin with the a showing of the short film “Aragalaya” and will be followed by discussion from four featured speakers.