A perfect blend at Galle Fort Art Gallery
View(s):- Text and pix by Juliet Coombe
In the quiet embrace of the Galle Fort Art Gallery, words poured like warm tea steaming, rich, and steeped in two hundred years of tea plucking history at this year’s Galle Literary Festival.
Time stood still for an hour as the voices of the three poets wove through the air. Their session Tea Stained Lines that included performing one folk song passed down through each generation was like listening to the magical tinkling of tea pots.
English translations carried the echoes of these Tamil estate workers’ truths and Sinhala verses followed, while the audience enjoyed exquisite, sustainably-sourced Sri Lankan artisan teas from the Ceylon Artisan Tea Association (CATA).
An exhibit from Brush & Brew and the artists involved (right)
The audience was surrounded by a stunning tea art exhibition titled Brush & Brew produced by dynamic artists Chamila Gamage, Prageeth Manohansa, J.C. Ratnayake, Nuwan Nalaka, Sanjaya Geekiyanage and Pramith Geekiyanage. They had clearly found their muse in the tea country poetry.
This wonderful interconnecting experience brought together art and poetry along with the delicate craftsmanship of the CATA group of Gold Award winning tea artisans from AMBA Estate, White Tea from Herman Gunaratne of Handunugoda, the wild teas of Forest Hill Tea, and the magic of Kaley Tea, Monkeytail Teas, Park Estate and Rosyth Estate. Each blend drunk during the poetry readings was a fusion of organic ingredients, carefully curated to create a symphony of flavours. The listeners did not just hear poetry they tasted it.
Over the next six weeks those who missed the Galle Literary Festival can continue to enjoy these beautiful works of tea: among them Chamila Gamage whose hand dyed work on batik captures the spirit of the tea gardens, Nuwan Nalaka’s works on art paper illustrating the journey of Ceylon tea from the plantations to the cities, and Prageeth Manohansa’s copper sculptures bringing the tea country to life, depicting its workers, wildlife, and landscapes.
Janaka de Silva, artist and curator of the gallery uses gold to portray the golden age of trade, upcycling old door panels, which he paints on, depicting elephants which were used before vehicles to carry huge boxes of tea from the mountains to the port of Colombo and then garden plants arriving on the trading ships back to the tea country for the plantation bungalow gardens.
For those interested, Tea Stained Lines, an anthology of poems by writers from the plantations produced by PEN Sri Lanka is also available.
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