22/09/2026
What might we learn by seeing craft not simply as a human act of making, but as a living web of relationships between people, plants, insects, seasons, materials and place?
Join us for the public view of Living Looms, Breathing Lacquer: Co-creating Ecological Futures with Sri Lankan Artisan Heritage, a research-led exhibition exploring the ecological intelligence and more-than-human worldviews embedded within two ceremonial craft traditions from Sri Lanka’s Central Province: Sesath (sunshade weaving) from Unaveruwa and Laksha (lacquer work) from Hapuvida.
Supported by the British Council’s Connections Through Culture Programme, the project is led by Dr Dilusha Rajapakse (Royal College of Art) with Professor Sudarshana Bandara (University of Peradeniya). Working closely with master artisans through immersive field research, oral histories and co-design workshops, the research examined how materials are grown, gathered, processed, coloured and transformed through seasonal rhythms, local environments, cultural practices, and generations of embodied sensory knowledge.
Rather than presenting Sesath and Laksha simply as heritage objects, the exhibition reveals the wider living systems through which these crafts become possible. Co-created craft samples, multi-species ecological maps and documentary films make these interdependencies visible, while also showing where they are becoming increasingly fragile.
Together, the works position craft as more than a form of production: they reveal making as a relational practice shaped through ongoing negotiation between human and more-than-human worlds. At a time of environmental change, declining access to natural materials and disrupted intergenerational knowledge, the exhibition asks what these long-established ways of knowing and making might contribute to contemporary thinking on sustainability and ecological futures.
Public View
Friday 25 September 2026 | 13.30–18.00
Saturday 26 September 2026 | 09.30–18.00
Third Floor
Kandy City Centre (KCC)
No. 5 Dalada Veediya
Kandy
Connections Through Culture Programme
The British Council’s Connections Through Culture (CTC) Programme supports artistic collaboration between the UK and countries in the Asia- Pacific and Europe. The grants support collaborative projects between artists, creative practitioners and arts organisations, fostering cross-cultural exchange and lasting relationships.
https://www.britishcouncil.lk/programmes/arts/connections-through-culture-grantee-2025
