Camouflaged Love

This series is an attempt at visually exploring answers to the query “How does cultural identity contribute towards restricting human relationships?” This series was created as a collection of parts over the course of 2016 

The images portray a traditional female Hindu dancer and a male Kandyan dancer in a lovers’ embrace. The same couple is in turn visually manipulated to portray a female LTTE cadre and a male state soldier.  In seeing these images the antagonisms and allegiances experienced by the viewer are of an especially contradictory nature, hinting at the elements of cultural influence on human emotions such as love, harmony, kindness, etc.

The question I aimed to raise was the tragedy of secondary elements in a man-made culture controlling the higher expressions of humanity such as kindness and love. 

The racial divisions in Sri Lanka resulted in people treating each other as enemies for over 30 years. The fact that this division was artificially created for political gain was a truth many failed to grasp until many years after the war ended. In the post-war climate, state-sponsored activities exalted the war, hero-worshiped soldiers, and denied any allegations towards war crimes. Thus Sri Lankans lost an invaluable opportunity and a historic moment for reconciliation. 

Being born of the majority race, I attempt to express my pain, regret accountability, and consciousness as an artist, through this series.