Arts

Artist's impression of colourful life in Jaffna:

Journey through Jaffna

by Ranga Chandrarathne
 

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The exhibition of paintings capturing the quintessential multi-faceted motif life in Jaffna and the book 'Jaffna, a sketch book' by artist Weerakkodige Vasantha Perera will be launched on February 15 at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery. The exhibition will remain open till February 17.

In a forward to the book 'Jaffna, a sketch book' Kalakeerthi, Rohana Pradeepa Edwin Ariyadasa states 'Weerakkodige Vasantha Perera, the romantic artist, has astoundingly captured the inner soul of the city of Jaffna.

Travelling-sketch book in hand- Vasantha was able to detect living, pulsating life, not only in men, women and animals but even in those ordinary objects, quant buildings and edifices, which are generally thought of as inanimate.'

The images of diverse facets of life in Jaffna and its defining

characteristics has been encapsulated by Vasantha in a pageant of portraits, thus pictorialising the rich cultural landscape in Jaffna peopled by ordinary folks.

Vasantha's sharp eye and his talented brush stokes has not spared minute details of the rich cultural legacy of Jaffna.

He has not only captured the ordinary cityscapes such as busy streets and Sari-clad women but also the prototype architecture which, perhaps, is unique to the city of Jaffna.

The exhibition offers a glimpse into the fascinating life in this enchanting northern city of Jaffna where life is influenced by Hindu culture and Karnatik music.

Special Film Forum on 'Harun Farocki'

Special Film Forum in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Television Training Institute (SLTTI) will be held on February 15 and 16 at Goethe-Hall from 10.00 a.m to 4.00 p.m.

The Goethe-Institut Sri Lanka will present one of the most prominent documentary filmmakers in Germany: Harun Farocki, author of approximately 90 films, guest professor in Berlin, D'sseldorf, Hamburg, Manila/Philippines, Munich and Stuttgart, as well as guest professor at the University of California, Berkely. At the moment he works as a guest professor at the Academy of Visual Arts in Vienna.

Farocki, who studied at the German Academy of Film and Television (DFFB) in Berlin, is particularly known for his engaged cinema, for socio-political involvement and for films which tend to cross over from documentary to experimental cinema and essay-film.

Particularly his first films 'The Words of the President' and 'Inextinguishable Fire' about napalm use during the Vietnam War, coined his profile as a filmmaker, while the latter was even called 'the most important agit-prop film of the Vietnam movement' (Klaus Kreimeier).

He has done work in radio and theatre, is an author and producer in film and television and was a member of the editorial staff of the famous film magazine 'Filmkritik' for ten years. We welcome him here in Colombo for the presentation of several of his films and for an engaged and professional discussion with the members of the Film Forum.

Inextinguishable Fire (1969); 25 min.

Harun Farocki's first movie after leaving film school combines didactics and political agitation with a sparse cinematic style. Farocki contrasts the voyeurism of Vietnam War reporting with a didactic arrangement: a model reconstruction of napalm manufacture is followed by a playful call to revolution.

War at a Distance (2003); 58 min.

Footage from American missiles has been famous around the world since the first Iraq war in 1991 serving to demonstrate technological superiority.

For Harun Farocki, they are examples of a new kind of photograph. GPS systems, 'intelligent weapons' and industrial processing of work units are all based on computational processes that reduce pictures to algorithms and technical operations. Workers Leaving the Factory (1995); 36 min.

Based on one of the Lumiere brothers historic first films, Harun Farocki has created a montage of scenes from 100 years of film history, all variations on the theme of workers leaving the factory. Farocki uses the pictures to reflect on the iconography and economy of a workers' society, as well as that of cinema itself, which tends to acquire its audience at the gates of the factory and hijack it into the private sphere.

As We Can See (1986); 72 min.

The film is a story of civil and military production. The tank is a logical outgrowth of agricultural machinery, while machine guns are based on a principle similar to that of the internal combustion engine. Farocki gives us the history of technology as a succession of automation phases, in which the human hand is replaced by the computer's calculations. Prison Pictures (2000); 60 min.

How have prisons been portrayed over the 100 years of film history? What kinds of images have been produced by prisons themselves with surveillance cameras and training videos for prison personnel?In Farocki's film the penal institution becomes an anthropological laboratory, in which life and death are rehearsed in front of the camera's unblinking eye.

Pictures of the World and Inscriptions of the War (1988); 44 min.

This film has two centres of gravity. One is a photograph of a woman in Auschwitz and the other is American aerial photography of the concentration camp.The two focal points are imbedded in a series of far-reaching, surprisingly integrated reflections on the interrelationship of measurements and photographic production. Although the pictures are often static, Farocki's exacting eye and his commentary give them a restless, imaginary movement.

IT

Fascinating facets of architecture

The Annual Session of SLIA 2008:

The Annual Session of Sri Lanka Institute of Architects will be held from February 20 - 24 at the BMICH under the theme 'Architect the Initiator'. The highlights of the session will be the National Conference on Architecture and The Architect 2008 Exhibition which is poised to attract thousands of visitors.

It would be an educative exhibition for the public as well as for students. Ulrik Plesner, well known architect who worked with legendary Geoffrey Bawa will be the main speaker at the National Conference on Architecture.

The eminent architects in line to address different sessions include Vidya Jothi Architect Ashley De Vos, Shree Sethi from Delhi, Christopher Silva, D.H. Wijewardene, Kishore Trivedi from Gujarat India, George Ziekle from Germany and M.M.G Samuel.

(R.C.)

German youth choir in Sri Lanka soon

The German youth choir will be on tour in Sri Lanka sponsored by the Goethe Institut, Sri Lanka on Thursday at 6.00 p.m. at the Cathedral of Christ the Living Saviour, Bauddhalokha Mawatha, Colombo 07.

For an area in eastern Germany with Grobenhain as its centre, Sri Lanka became a concrete reference point: both for post-tsunami help and accompanied cultural programmes, amongst them this particular presentation. In 2007 a choir of 16 people, the "Comedian Harmonists Revival Choir" - also supported by the Goethe-Institut, came to Sri Lanka and it was a great public success. The promoter and composer Stefan Janke has assembled a new choir, the Ecumenical Youth Choir, which will come to Sri Lanka in February 2008.

With the help of the Goethe-Institut Sri Lanka the choir will have a workshop and hold performances in Galle and Colombo, presenting works of Schutz, Gounod and Janke, as well as German folk-songs.