The President recently remarked that the country has tourism, but, not a tourist industry. This is especially true in the context of our rich but underutilised contemporary art scene – our museums, galleries, and festivals, which remain largely overlooked in tourism promotion strategies.
Around the world, these are the very attractions that draw millions. Contemporary art museums are no longer just cultural institutions; they are tourist destinations in their own right.
Take, for example, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. A bold decision in the 1990s by a regional government to fund an international contemporary art Museum in an industrial city with little tourism seemed audacious at the time. Yet today, Bilbao is one of Europe’s most visited cities, transformed largely by the said museum and the tourist industry that grew around it.
Inspired by this model, countries like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have invested billions in art institutions, and are already reaping the rewards. While Sri Lanka may lack the financial resources of the Gulf States, we have a ready-made opportunity in the form of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka (MMCA), a functioning, self-funded institution led by internationally renowned curator Sharmini Pereira. Despite lacking a permanent home, the MMCA has built a framework that meets global standards, all without state support. The Government owns several unused or underutilised buildings in Colombo. Allocating one as the MMCA’s permanent residence could yield rapid, far-reaching benefits. Once established, the Ministry of Tourism and other bodies could promote the museum globally, unlocking enormous potential for both tourism and the local art ecosystem.
Art festivals and regional positioning
Sri Lanka’s location offers a second major opportunity: becoming a South Asian art hub. More than geography, Sri Lanka’s political neutrality and openness could make it a meeting ground for artists from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and beyond, many of whom face restrictions at home. Encouragingly, this is already in motion. The KALĀ platform for South Asian contemporary art, led by Saskia Fernando, whose gallery was the first in Sri Lanka to represent Sri Lankan contemporary artists, recently completed a two-week programme of exhibitions, talks, and events, attracting key figures from the regional art world. If nurtured, KALĀ could become a permanent fixture on the global art calendar – just like the Galle Literary Festival (GLF), which grew from modest beginnings in 2007 to international acclaim.
Colomboscope, Sri Lanka’s first contemporary arts festival launched in 2013, now in its eighth edition, also showcases Sri Lankan art alongside global themes – the environment, community, politics, and more. Under Artistic Director Natasha Ginwala, Colomboscope has become internationally connected, comparable to festivals like the Sharjah Biennial, and has propelled local artists to global platforms. The objectives and achievements of Colomboscope would make Ananda Kentish Muthu Coomaraswamy proud.
Similarly, the Colombo Art Biennale (CAB) was Sri Lanka’s first and only large-scale international contemporary art biennale. Beginning in 2009 with the theme Imagine Peace, it offered a critical platform for post-war expression and reconciliation. The Biennale brought to international attention leading Sri Lankan artists such as Jagath Weerasinghe, Chandraguptha Thenuwara, Anoma Wijewardene, Pala Pothupitiya, Anoli Perera, Muhanned Cader, among many others. It has not been held since 2016.
Art spaces and their impact
In terms of art spaces, which include galleries, museums, cafés and hotel lobbies, Colombo has a lot to offer. Sadly, the National Art Gallery which should be our flagship can be described as a national disaster. It needs serious intervention to address its issues and fulfill its role. Fortunately, private galleries have stepped into the breach. The Barefoot Gallery set up by Barbara Sansoni in 1966 and run by the Sansoni family for more than 50 years has made a huge contribution, particularly during the lean period of Sri Lankan art in the 1980s and 1990s. The Barefoot Gallery, and Udayashanth Fernando’s Paradise Road-The Gallery Café which opened in 1998, support and provide venues for up and coming artists to show their work. These establishments are very popular with tourists and are much praised by travel writers.
The Sapumal Foundation, an art gallery and museum of the ’43 Group in Barnes Place, Colombo 7, is a hidden gem, is not known to many local residents, let alone tourists. This place should be recognised and promoted as one of the most important places in the history of Asian modern art. The Sapumal Foundation, the former home of Harry Pieris, a central figure of the ’43 Group, houses works from the other artists of the said group, and deserves a status similar to the Frida Kahlo Museum/Blue House in Mexico City. Although not of the similar scale and focus, Jomo Uduman’s Sky Gallery, which has as its permanent collection; the work of the important Sri Lankan modern artist, Fareed Uduman, deserves a mention. The art elite in Sri Lanka may well turn their nose up that one of the main agendas of this gallery is to show reproductions of works of great artists of the world, similar to what the ’43 Group did in the 1950s. The Sky Gallery also provides a venue for Sri Lankan emerging artists to exhibit their work.
Beyond Colombo, there is a significant lack of galleries in tourist hubs like Kandy. The Taprobane Collection; an extensive private collection and virtual gallery, could address this by opening a gallery there. In the Northern Province, art has become part of the post-war healing process. Initiatives like the Jaffna Arts Festival and the Sri Lanka Archive of Contemporary Art, Architecture and Design led by Pereira, artist T. Shanaathanan, and others, are helping redefine the region’s cultural identity. The archives located in a house which has connections to Coomaraswamy and the more recent T.P. Hunt Art Gallery are examples of what should not only be destinations for visiting diaspora, but for all tourists visiting Sri Lanka.
There are many hotels with lobbies and spaces that display Sri Lankan contemporary art which also need to be promoted in art tourism. The Lighthouse Hotel in Galle with Laki Senanayake’s magnificent staircase sculpture of the Portuguese conquest of Sri Lanka, is an example of what could be. The newest entry to the hotel world, the Cinnamon Life ‘City of Dreams’, which has one of the best collections of Sri Lankan contemporary art, excellently curated and displayed, should be promoted as an art venue in its own right.
Art magazines and global visibility
Asia’s first art Magazine Asian Archives was launched in 1945, followed by Marg in 1948 in India, established by Mulk Raj Anand with vital contributions from Sri Lankans Minnette de Silva and Anil de Silva. It took over 60 years for Sri Lanka’s own art Magazine ARTRA to emerge in 2012. Founded by Azara Jaleel, ARTRA has grown into a stylish, internationally respected publication, systematically archiving the nation’s art history. ARTRA’s last year’s (2024) event, ‘Sri Lankan Modern Art|Beyond the Shores’ at London, England’s Grosvenor Gallery drew considerable international attention. This month (July), ARTRA is hosting a series of events in London aimed at branding Sri Lanka as a global destination for contemporary art tourism – an ambitious yet achievable goal.
Historical context and education
Historically speaking, the Sigiriya frescos and temple paintings from the Kandyan period were the only surviving pictorial art from the grand past. The Portuguese and Dutch colonialists did very little to contribute to the pictorial art history of the country. Easel painting was introduced to the country by the British colonial administration and formal teaching began at the Maradana Technical College. After many organisational changes, this became the independent University of the Visual and Performing Arts (UVPA). The UVPA, in its many development stages and other higher education institutes and schools, produced generations of artists in Sri Lanka.
The ’43 Group who burst into the scene introducing modernism to Ceylon had its last exhibition in 1964, and with the exception of artists such as David Shillingford Paynter, H.A. Karunaratne and Stanley Kirinde, who spanned the modern and contemporary world, few stood out. That is until leaders such as Weerasinghe and Thenuwara emerged in the 1990s. Thenuwara’s Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts and the Theertha Artists Collective formed by Weerasinghe, Perera and others injected energy into the scene. Other collectives and groups have also sprung up, for example, The Packet, established in 2019, which had an immediate international impact, and one of its founding members Abdul Halik Azeez has gained international recognition and respect. The Collective of Contemporary Artists and the latest addition; the Millennium Art Contemporary, are all part of a rich tapestry.
The George Keyt Foundation established in 1988 to preserve the legacy of Keyt and to support emerging artists has made an enormous contribution. The foundation’s ‘Nawa Kala Karuwo’, the annual exhibitions and ‘Kala Pola’ have provided a venue for struggling artists to show and sell their work. Under its enthusiastic and charismatic Chair Malaka Talwatte, the foundation is being taken to another level. Their events need to be linked to the international art scene and aligned to the tourist agenda of the country.
A plea to the Govt.
The art world or community is a small one, but millions around the world visit galleries and museums. Research has shown that visitors to art galleries and exhibitions come out transformed, generally uplifted with a feeling of wellbeing. For some, it provokes thought. A case can therefore be made for exploiting the enormous resources that we have, to benefit the country. As a nation, and people working together is not one of our natural strengths, but perhaps, there is scope to at least pull together in the right direction to benefit the country at this particular point.
ARTRA’s vision and ideal to make Sri Lanka a global contemporary art destination, as well as the vision of others to make it a hub for Asian art is within our reach. It does not even require the allocation of financial resources.
As a first step, approving the allocation of a building for the MMCA in Colombo, would make a huge impact. One hopes that the new Mayor of Colombo champions this cause – it could become her lasting legacy. A second step would be the creation of a task force made up of stakeholders in the art world, the tourist industry and government ministries and departments to take this agenda forward. I hope that the chance to grab this low-hanging fruit is not lost.
(The author is a writer on art and an art collector)
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(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication)