Making History will be the theme of the 2014 Colombo Art Biennale (CAB14) – Sri Lanka’s leading international festival of contemporary art that will open to the public from January 31 to February 10. The provocative theme seeks to explore the artistic adventure of making history. It enquires into the contemporary aesthetic experience, from historical, present and future points of view, to reveal a possible reality of making history as part of an art historical trajectory.

An image from Liz Fernando

Featuring works by artists and artist collectives from 12 different countries, CAB14 will showcase artists from Sri Lanka, the South Asian region as well as from Europe and the USA, bringing to the fore painting, sculpture, photography, installation, video, audio and performance arts.

In addition to the main programme, CAB14 is partnering with other exciting cultural events:

- Colomboscope will launch its second edition under the same theme as CAB14, as part of and in collaboration with CAB14. The three-day programme will combine literary events, debates, performing arts and music programmes from Sri Lanka, UK and Germany, and is supported by the Goethe Institut, the British Council and Standard Chartered Bank.

‘‘Homelands’, a 21st century contemporary art story of home, away, travelling around South Asia will join CAB in Colombo. This exhibition is supported by the British Council. German artist Rosemarie Trockel who is part of a series of monographic exhibitions from the Institut for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa) will be taking part in CAB.

- The Hong Kong based Sovereign Asian Art Foundation(Art Prize) will be supporting an educational programme for schoolchildren in Colombo, led by 2011 SAP prize winning artist Pala Pothupitiye and his team, to help improve artistic skills and tourism awareness in the local community by teaching skills to create art and crafts and English.

Google and CAB14 will collaborate to set up mobile applications, live-streams, Google hangouts and more interactive digital artworks especially designed for CAB14. A feature of CAB 2014 will be the Art Talks that were launched at CAB 2012, that will be expanded as a conversation series that engages with the theme of ‘making history’.

There will also be a number of fun social events for everyone during this nine-day arts fest. Venues will include JDA Perera Gallery, Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute, Post Graduate Institute of Archaeology, the Goethe Institut, Park Street Mews and the New Town Hall.