Pala Pothupitiye draws on both international history and local ritual while he continues to discover new possibilities for contemporary art in Sri Lanka. In particular, he interrogates European colonial paradigms and the effects these legacies have had on the development and perception of the nation’s art and culture.

After moving to Colombo and coming across maps in English, Pothupitiye began following their routes around the city, collecting materials along the way to produce some of his early sculptures. He began seeking out old maps of the cities, ports and forts of Sri Lanka, and a significant part of his practice has since been dedicated to re-appropriating and decolonising cartographic devices. These maps are records of the many attempts to seize control of areas of the island nation; from the early years of the sixteenth century, with the arrival of the Portuguese and the Dutch; continuing through the British colonial period; to Sri Lankan Independence in 1948. Many of these European maps also bear elaborate illustrations, overlaid with symbols of monarchists and military might as well as natural and human resources that could be conquered and exploited by foreign explorers and colonial projects. Pothupitiye began manipulating and transforming these images in a deliberate attempt to challenge the hierarchies of map-making and its associations of colonial authority.

Through a layering of artistic techniques, Pothupitiye creates new cartographies that confront issues of colonialism and national identity, seizing control of the coloniser’s narrative. He sees the original maps as tangible colonial objects where what is being measured becomes inferior to the hierarchical perspective of those who carry out the measuring.¹ He also draws a direct correlation between the colonial process of division and containment, which separated people from their land, and the devastating demarcation of lands on ethnic grounds that occurred in the subsequent Sri Lankan Civil War (1983–2009). As he states, ‘I wanted to reveal how map-making was used as an instrument of gaining control over Sri Lankans’ relationship with their own land’.² Through the process, Pothupitiye considers the complex history of seizure and control in Sri Lanka’s history and these events’ ongoing place in the country’s identity, and takes back ownership of the cartography.

To existing maps, Pothupitiye adds a number of recurring motifs, including colonial soldiers and slaves; embellishes the muted colours and cartographic lines with colourful illustrations; and abstracts the lines that delineate hard boundaries of ownership. Some of the original maps are left clearly decipherable, while others are almost completely transformed as bodies of land and symbols of past empires are overlaid with native symbols, motifs and creatures. In his own words, Pothupitiye views his works as an instrument to

confront issues such as colonialism, nationalism, religious extremism and militarism, and extend the inquiry to questions of caste, the distinction between art and craft, tradition and modernity, as well as generating a critique of Euro-centrism.³

Pothupitye also actively revives and draws attention to native Sri Lankan artistic practices. His parents were artisans in the small village of Deniyaya, where he was raised; his father a craftsman of ornate costumes and objects for healing rituals, and his mother a practitioner of indigenous medicine and traditional reed weaving. Pothupitye was confronted with how ritual and traditional practices had become relegated to ‘low art’ or ‘craft’ in the city, and recognised this as yet another hegemonic construct of colonial Eurocentrism. In response, he founded the Mullegama Art Center to establish learning opportunities in the absence of arts content in the formal education system, and to support and advocate for craft and traditional practices. He has also begun to find platforms to exhibit and collaborate with his father, advocating for these artforms to be considered in contemporary art platforms. Through his practice, Pothupitiye brings to light the complexity of a postcolonial Sri Lankan identity and reclaims visual edifices and artefacts to continue to develop the country’s contemporary culture.

Endnotes

1.  Olivia Sand, ‘Pala Pothupitiye’, Asian Art, vol. 22, no. 6, June 2020, pp.2–4.
2. Pala Pothupitive in Chintan Girish Modi, ‘Questioning knowledge, rethinking education: A conversation with Pala Pothupitiye’, Chintan Girish Modi, 24 December 2018, , viewed June 2021.
3. Dev Pathak, ‘Why a Sri Lankan artist’s redrawn maps are gaining ardent admirers in India’, Scroll, 2 May 2017, viewed June 2021.