How do we look at land? Do we see it as just soil, space, or scenery? Or do we see it as a landscape that captures our memory, identity, and politics? Realistically, land is transformed not just by nature and development, but also by how we see it, use it, and frame it.
The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka’s (MMCA Sri Lanka) ongoing exhibition ‘Total Landscaping’ looks at these complexities, charting how Sri Lanka’s landscapes have been reshaped, contested, and narrated across time.
Now in its third and final rotation, ‘Total Landscaping’ brings together the work of 29 artists, (Rotation 3 features 11 of these artists – Bandu Manamperi, Danushka Marasinghe, Deshan Tennekoon, Isuri Dayaratne, Laki Senanayake, M. Vijitharan, Muhanned Cader, Ruvin De Silva, Sakina Aliakbar, Suntharam Anojan, and Tashiya de Mel), each of whom engage with land not simply as a physical space but as a site of layered meaning as well.
The exhibition is curated by Sandev Handy and Thinal Sajeewa, with Rotation 3 running until 29 May.
The Sunday Morning Brunch was given a special walkthrough of the exhibition and a look at its meaning by Sajeewa.
The walkthrough begins with Danushka Marasinghe’s site-responsive installation – a deceptively tranquil recreation of a paddy field. The work invites visitors to step into its stillness, but this peace is interrupted by a slightly unnerving soundscape that draws on a personal experience of Marasinghe’s from 2016, when he found himself enjoying the serenity of a rural paddy field until the unsettling noise of something moving beneath the canopy broke the calm.
This moment to him felt symbolic of the landscape of post-war Sri Lanka – a calm surface masking unresolved tensions. Installed at the entrance of ‘Total Landscaping,’ the piece functions as a conceptual introduction to looking to the subtleties of landscape, urging visitors to listen as much as they look.
Narrating through frame and form
A key section of the exhibition is titled ‘To Frame,’ and it probes how landscapes are curated and mediated – visually, institutionally, and politically. Among the works in this section is a collaborative piece by Deshan Tennekoon and Isuri Dayaratne that blends haiku and comic illustration.
Inspired by a visit to Pasikudah, the work captures the textures, sounds, and atmosphere of the coastal landscape through a series of loosely structured comic panels. Visitors are encouraged to interact with the work not linearly but sensorially – to feel the place rather than simply decode it. Copies of the comic are available to take home, extending the experience beyond the gallery.
Also in this section are sketches by the late Laki Senanayake, best known for his contributions to design, architecture, and, funnily enough, the design of our currency notes.
Senanayake’s work on the Sri Lankan currency notes between 1977 and 1979 marked a subtle but significant shift in national imagery. Moving away from the usual religious or architectural motifs, he introduced flora, fauna, and endangered species into everyday currency, reframing national priorities through a naturalist lens.
His developmental sketches and print notes on display highlight a manual, analogue precision that feels increasingly rare today. Interestingly, Senanayake’s design of the bank note was the first to be designed in portrait orientation. All prior currency notes were exclusively landscape in design.
Sajeewa noted that these works and their positioning within the exhibition hope to remind visitors that to frame a landscape is also to make decisions about what is visible, valued, or forgotten, and to emphasise that framing is never neutral; whether it is a banknote, a tourist brochure, or a conservation map, all come with agendas.
Digging through memory and conflict
From there, the exhibition moves into ‘To Unearth’ – a grouping of works that examine the buried layers of landscape, both literal and metaphorical.
Tashiya de Mel’s photographic series focuses on the Mahaweli Development Scheme, one of Sri Lanka’s largest post-independence infrastructure projects. Her work traces how large-scale hydro-engineering transformed not only the physical environment, but also the communities who were resettled to make way for it.
The new town of Wewagama, for instance, sits within three forest reserves and an elephant corridor, creating ongoing human-wildlife conflict. De Mel’s photographs draw attention to these quiet tensions, where State narratives of progress overlook the lived disruptions of the people on the ground.
M. Vijitharan’s sculptural works ‘Motherland II, III, and IV’ bring a similar tension to life through a stark visual juxtaposition. Farming tools, specifically mammoties, are embedded with spent ammunition shells – objects found by returning communities who came back to reclaim their farmland after the war.
These tools of cultivation now unearth not only soil, but also reminders of violence and trauma. The work highlights a troubling paradox: land that once symbolised abundance is now a surface that yields memories of conflict.
Ruvin De Silva and Sakina Aliakbar’s video piece ‘In Plain Sight’ expands on this idea. Based on a report about the mass graves of those who were forcibly disappeared, the video moves between rural scenes that appear ordinary – fields, back roads, fences – but carry the weight of possible atrocities.
In seeking out these unmarked burial sites, the artists suggest that the land itself can act as a witness, holding traces of what history has chosen not to preserve.
Erasure, faith and power within our landscape
One of the more striking works in the exhibition is Bandu Manamperi’s ‘Moonstone 1.’ Referencing the traditional moonstone – a semi-circular stone placed at the threshold of a religious site – Manamperi’s version is warped, crushed, and rendered non-functional.
Made of fibreglass and resin, the piece speaks to the way sacred traditions and Buddhist symbols have been co-opted in ways that contradict their original philosophies. It’s a powerful commentary on the instrumentalisation of religion in Sri Lanka’s recent history.
Suntharam Anojan’s work also deals with erasure, but from a different angle. Drawing on events from 2018 in Mullaitivu – where a tank and mountain long associated with Hindu worship were reclassified as Buddhist archaeological sites – his mixed media paintings are dense with colour, texture, and symbolism.
Using the technique of underpainting, Anojan visually represents the layering and overwriting of community, memory, and land. What emerges is a landscape marked by displacement – of people, faiths, and histories.
An opportunity to take new perspective
Not all the works in ‘Total Landscaping’ are overtly political. Muhanned Cader’s ‘Travel Switches 1-10’ offers a more meditative engagement with landscape. The series documents scenes from Cader’s travels – quiet, nondescript places rendered in his signature abstract framing.
The negative space in these compositions demands the viewer’s attention, inviting contemplation of what is not shown. It’s a thoughtful counterpoint to the more charged works around it, reminding us that absence too can be powerful.
Rotation 3 of ‘Total Landscaping’ is arguably its most layered and ambitious. While it does not attempt to present a single, unified narrative, it does successfully provoke deeper questions about how land is understood, inhabited, and remembered.
The diversity of mediums – photography, illustration, sculpture, video, installation – adds richness to the curatorial voice, while the thematic divisions help ground what could otherwise be an overwhelming subject.
Sajeewa noted during the walkthrough that over 10,000 visitors had experienced the exhibition since it opened. Importantly, MMCA Sri Lanka remains a free-entry, education-led space, making contemporary art accessible to a wider public.
“We weren’t necessarily taught about modern and contemporary art, especially not local work from the early 1900s to now. This exhibition helps bridge that gap,” Sajeewa reflected.
‘Total Landscaping’ Rotation 3 is on view at MMCA Sri Lanka, Crescat Boulevard, until 29 May