Understanding the pulse of the nation through art
Exhibition curator Sharmini Pereira shows a painting by W. J.G. Beling. Pix by Amila Gamage
The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), an initiative dedicated to illuminating contemporary and modern art in Sri Lanka was launched on December 12, at the Colombo Innovation Tower.
A privately funded not-for-profit organisation that can be freely accessed by the public, the MMCA founding committee hopes that the museum and its collections will be used for research, conservation, display and study of art for the educational benefit of the public.
“What we are launching today, is not the museum itself. It is the beginning of the journey towards the museum. It (the Museum) was about Sri Lankans understanding the pulse of the nation through art,” Ajit Gunawardene, Chair of the Founding Committee told the press.
Curator for education and public engagement of the MMCA Ruhanie Perera elaborated, “Education is at the heart of everything that we do. Our understanding is to engage with conserving what we are hoping will be an active discovery into learning who our public is, who our communities are and how we can work with them.”
The Museum’s debut exhibition ‘One hundred thousand small tales’ featuring some 150 artworks by 43 artists curated by Sharmini Pereira is being held at the Colombo Innovation Tower (17th floor). First commissioned for the Dhaka Art Summit, it will be on for three months alongside a series of events.
The MMCA will have exhibition tours daily at 12.30 p.m. in English and on weekends at 3.30 p.m. in Sinhala and Tamil as well.
For more see www.mmca-srilanka.org