Pradeep Thalawatta in Conversation with Vangeesa Sumanasekara

Go Home is Within Me is foregrounded in rebellion. Resilience and solidarity fuel the imagination. They become totems to reassess dreams. The emotionally charged atmosphere of the Aragalaya (in the aftermath of the 2022 economic collapse in Sri Lanka) catapulted a political awakening, the ripple effects of which moved through South Asia. Contained within its spontaneity was the zeal to overcome a bleak future muddled with uncertainty. Pradeep Thalawatta excavates this momentum, renewing submerged public, political, and personal aspirations through the body of work in the exhibition.

Pradeep Thalawatta' work has been exhibited at several solo and group shows in Sri Lanka and has also exhibited at the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh (2018), Zahoor-Ul-Ikhlaq Gallery, Pakistan (2018), Times Museum Hong Kong (2016), Dakar Biennale Africa (2016), Satrang Gallery Pakistan (2015), Brunei Gallery London (2014), 1 Shanthiroad GalleryIndia (2010), and National Art Gallery Maldives (2009).

He was among the 30 finalists selected for the Asian Art Prize, Christie’s, Hong Kong (2014-15) and was an awardee of the UNESCO Madanjeet Singh Institute for South Asian Arts scholarship for the years 2005-2006 and 2015-2016. His works belong in the permanent collection at Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan and Millesgarden Museum, Sweden

Vangeesa Sumanasekara is a philosopher specialising in the contemporary renewal of metaphysics in continental philosophy. He is a senior researcher at the Colombo School of Philosophy and has published several books, in addition to translating important works in contemporary thought.