fisher folks

do fisher folks dream of rising seas?
research project | 2022 - on going

Video of a fisherman mid-ecstatic-dance, with neighbouring kids in the background, taken during the annual “Kavadi” parade; a bastardised version of the Hindu(Murugan) rite of passage ritual, where here (only in the deep south-coast), men in groups dance from one temple to another, most-often intoxicated on alcohol or drugs. 
Video still from an interview with neighbour & fisherman “Baby-uncle”
(video, 20 mins).
Photo of young-fisherman in Kathaluwa who confessed to me of dreams of migrating to Korea A recurring conversation with aspirational young-men in the southern fishing communities who don’t want to be known as “smelly fisher-men” from a lower-caste.
I’m translating the dreams & recollections of fisher-folks, to unearth forgotten folk stories and oral histories within Sri Lanka's coastal fishing communities. I’ve been doing this, instinctively, as an antithesis to the unchecked tourism & rampant consumerism invading & erasing the fishing community & ecology I’ve lived with-in since 2019.

Personally, this is an attempt to annotate on desire & longing; the desire for westernised notions of modernisation & the longing for remembrance of traditional-folk practices within it; out-side of narrative time but pointing right back at it its final form as only the translation of dreams can do. 
The work is taking many forms, from documented conversations using consumer-research methodologies from my “past-life” career in tech to self-taught practices from archiving ephemera through photos to collaborative drawings & paintings of encounters with the fisher-folks to translate their recollections into folk-stories. 

This series both highlights the ephemerality of southern, aspirational-class desires & at the same time attempts to ground their humanity in the nuanced, personal & relatable.

Amare uncle dreams of a bull I,
pastel on paper, 60 x 84 cm, 2023
Amare uncle dreams of a bull II,
pastel on paper, 60 x 84 cm, 2023
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Baby-uncle dreams of his mother (soft pastel & gouache on paper, A3)
Dreaming of a cigarette break (soft pastel & gouache on paper, A5)
B.D smoker in dreamy morning light,  Oil pastel on Canvas , A3
Dreaming of a paradise lost, oil on canvas, 148 x 210 cm