COLOMBOSCOPE
Colomboscope is a contemporary arts festival and creative platform for interdisciplinary dialogue that has grown steadily within the cultural landscape of Colombo since 2013. The festival has worked with a range of intergenerational artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, social theorists and scientific researchers from Sri Lanka and internationally delivering a focused programme with each festival edition held at key historic sites in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Several of the cultural practitioners participating in Colomboscope have gone on to show their work within regional and international exhibitions. The festival organizers are committed to building a sustainable and context-responsive environment for cultural producers to continue generating path-breaking, collaborative and genre-defying approaches in the field.
Fold Media Collective Initiatives, the organizing entity for Colomboscope is a registered non-profit organisation that consists of freelance cultural professionals, they have a background in design, arts management, architecture, cultural production, communications and have worked with a range of local institutions.
Way of the Forest
This festival edition brought alive modes of sensing and learning from multispecies forest worlds to reflect aspects of dreaming, fugitivity, and regeneration, while also reckoning with dramatic realities of land struggles as well as the erosion of earth resources. Curated by Hit Man Gurung, Sheelasha Rajbhandari, Sarker Protick with artistic director Natasha Ginwala, Way of the Forest engaged with several artists and cultural organizers who are deeply connected with indigenous knowledge, collective production, ecopolitical and agrarian practices.
Edited by Natasha Ginwala, with contributions by Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Anushka Rajendran, Hit Man Gurung, Natasha Ginwala, Myriam Mihindou, Sarker Protick, Sheelasha Rajbhandari, Elena Sorokina, Syma Tariq, Vidhi Todi, Dr Ranil Senanayake and Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, the Colomboscope 2024 festival guidebook includes text, visual resources, vignettes on artistic practice and new works as well as curatorial narratives and festival programme of the 2024 edition of Colomboscope as a growing initiative fostering local and transregional cultural production and interdisciplinary dialogue.
Website: colomboscope
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Asvajit Boyle and Lalindra Amarasekara (De)Generative Processes II, 2016 Audio visual performance at the Sri Lanka Planetarium Colomboscope 2016 'Testing Grounds' Photo Credit: Ruvin de Silva

Workshop ‘Reading For a Life Beyond Tea’ Led by Mythri Jegathesan At Colomboscope 2022 “Language is Migrant” Photo Credit: Shehan Obeysekara

Isaac Smith Be-Leaf Me, 2017 Sound installation Installation view at Colomboscope 2017 ‘Re/Evolution’ Photo credit: Ruvin de Silva

Mounira al Solh In Love, In Blood, 2021-22 Charcoal on wall and embroidery on fabric Installation view at Colomboscope 2022 “Language is Migrant” Photo Credit: Shehan Obeysekara

Areez Katki‘Words are Pilgrims’ Series,Various Works, 2019-ongoingCotton thread hand embroidery on Turkish cotton handwoven towel; Cotton thread hand embroidery applied over repurposed Bombay Dyeing tea towels (c. 1940) with applied 19th Century hand loomed cotton Mul fragmentsInstallation view at Colomboscope 2022 ‘Language is Migrant’Photo Credit: Shehan Obeysekara

Omer Wasim Spectral Remains, 2020-22 Gotu kola, Periwinkle, soil, bricks, sound Installation view at Colomboscope 2022 “Language is Migrant” Photo Credit: Shehan Obeysekara
