The different kinds of truths
If, and when asked, many would say they are interested in finding the
truth. Truth seeking, whether through faith, a political process,
debate, research, investigation, introspection or whatever other means,
is not on the face of it a process many will oppose. And yet,
counter-intuitively, few are interested in truth. Asking questions that
seek to contest what novelist, Chimamanda Adichie calls the ‘single
narrative’ risks upsetting partial and partisan history, beliefs and
powerful myths ingrained in a group, community or nation. Accordingly,
there are ‘truths’ we hold on to, knowing they are untrue. There are
‘truths’ we believe in because we haven’t questioned enough, and don’t
know how to. There are other ‘truths’ that even just to question marks
one out as a traitor or a terrorist supporter, and out of fear and
fatigue, we just allow the lie to take flight.
Shamsia Hassani |
San Zaw Htway- Soul of peace |
And therein lies the rub. Largely, as a result of an education system
and pedagogy in Sri Lanka anchored to rote learning and mindless
regurgitation, many of us do not have the capacity to critically
question what we are told or consume. As a result, the worst lies and
distortions are blithely accepted, indeed even vehemently championed.
The inclination to question is seen as deeply subversive - an entirely
unnecessary aberration, best quashed quickly. The willing suspension of
disbelief, a phrase from Coleridge, becomes the socio-political norm,
with truth seeking as a fringe lunacy that only seeks to open wounds,
memories and histories best left untouched or at the margins.
Post-war Sri Lanka is defined by an enduring struggle between memory
and moving on, between recalling the inconvenient and violent erasure,
between those who seek to probe and those who want to cover up.
Working at the intersection of politics, art, theatre, media,
technology, memory and subjectivity to create a space for reflection,
‘Watch this space’ looks at a country in transition, where a just peace
remains elusive and the space(s) to remember the inconvenient - the
‘Other’ - still results in hostility and violent pushback. The art
frames conversations in response to violence and the conversations allow
perspectives on the art that would otherwise not have been generated or
acknowledged.
The emotive, complex, divisive, challenging issues the art responds
to, is framed by or is a product of are what discussants, speakers,
actors and panellists will robustly interrogate over a week. The
questions are provocative, the art will unsettle and the theatre will
jar with what many consider the truth. This is deliberate.
No greater truth was ever arrived at by sloth or servility. ‘Watch
this space’ is an invitation to ask questions. Rude questions. Hard
questions. It is an invitation to reflect, a space to not just passively
hear, but actively listen and respond. It is platform that brings
perspectives on violent conflict from outside of Sri Lanka and
juxtaposes this art with work located and produced in the country.
Curator’s Note
Sanjana Hattotuwa
Forgetting November
‘Forgetting November’, a performance directed by Jake Oorloff, will
be staged at the Harold Pieris Galler, Lionel Wendt Art Centre as part
of ‘Watch this space’, offering a novel opportunity to experiment with
yet another interesting space for performance by Floating Space Theatre
Company.
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Jake Oorloff |
Explains Jake Oorloff, “The choice of setting the play outside of Sri
Lanka was one I made early on in the process and is a significant shift
from my previous plays. Set in a fictitious country in the global south,
it references dark chapters of its history,”
The work of Floating Space Theatre Company has been consistently born
of an impulse to explore and respond to the politics of time and
context. It was initiated in November 2007 by Jake Oorloff and Ruhanie
Perera, with the mere intention of exploring possibilities and question
perceived limits in performance. As Ruhanie explains, Floating Space is
inspired by unlearning, the unconventional and shared experiences in
performance. Its focus is to create and produce performance, with the
objective of exploring the possibilities of theatre in terms of form,
style, space, approach and purpose. It is a place of meeting for
artistes who are with different artistic talents, not just Sri Lankan
artistes but artistes from everywhere in the world.
Speaking about ‘Forgetting November ‘and it’s content, Jake explains
that it traces the lives of three individuals, who in the wake of a
failed liberation struggle, attempt to position themselves within the
collective memory of a thirty-year long conflict. In mapping the lives
of the protagonists, the story explores how the memories of a person can
complicate their existence within a collective, more public memory of
the past.
“We meet the three characters at a time when the state and the people
are going through a time of reckoning and a mechanism of transitional
justice. Against this back drop the three characters seek personal
reconciliation with events of their past and make demands of the
mechanism that will allow them a space of moaning, acknowledgment and
justice at a time when trails and court proceedings have been launched
against former regime and its officials for human rights violations,”
Jake explained.
Memories are complicated, intimate, and on occasion repressed. As
Jake elaborates in Forgetting November, they set out to explore how
memory functions in relation to the act of moving on, and of the ways in
which certain remembrances are repositioned, memorialized or set aside
in the face of a future that is separate though not disconnected from
its past.
“The story revolves around two female protagonists, Paola and Leta
(played by Ranmali Mirchandani and Ruhanie Perera), thus engage in a
struggle to remember, and at times to renegotiate their memories in
relation to their past, present and future, and in doing so expose how
memory is often caught up with and connected to daily rituals. The act
of remembering then becomes witness to a past that confronts and
problematises the power of public memories of events that shape lived
experience,” Jake explains.
- Anuradha Kodagoda
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