Humanity & Earth through eyes of six young photographers

A group photography exhibition ‘Humanity & Earth’ that opened on Thursday evening (3) at the Harold Peiris Gallery showcases selected works of documentary photo stories from a diverse group of Sri Lankan photographers. The photo stories explore aspects of the environmental and climate crisis, culture, and humanity in Sri Lanka.

On from September 4-13 from 10 am - 7 pm daily, the exhibition is the conclusion of a two-year project in which the Goethe-Institut of Sri Lanka engaged with German documentary photojournalist, Andy Spyra, and German-Sri Lankan conceptual photography artist, Liz Fernando, who mentored the group of photographers through a series of focused workshops and masterclasses.

Over the course of two years, the photographers Tashiya de Mel, Munira Mutaher, Shehan Obeysekera, Ramanathan Parilojithan, Sandranathan Rubatheesan and Tharmapalan Tilaxan explored the environmental and climate crisis, and its socio-cultural implications in Sri Lanka through their visual stories. Coming from very different approaches to their discipline, mentors Andy and Liz provided a wide spectrum of advice, ideas, inspiration and challenges to the group.

The mentorship and curatorial idea behind this exhibition is to give way to the collective thought process embedded historically in the camera’s greatest tool; it always enabled us to see things that cannot be seen with the naked eye and therefore brings us closer to the ‘optical consciousness’ our current times are asking us for.

(Pix by Amila Gamage)