Immersive exhibition

Imaad Majeed reclines on a low chair and we almost step over him. He startles us with his instructions; “go ahead-pick a phrase.” Imaad, 24, is one of Colombo’s most talented young poets and tonight he promises an impromptu performance to end all impromptu attempts. We are to pick Imaad’s words for him from a bunch of Economist magazines taped to one wall, and paste them on the other blank wall he has set up. He will, at the end of the night, make poetry out of those phrases. Imaad’s exhibit was one of many at Thursday’s (June 4) ‘In Space’, an immersive exhibition at the Barefoot Gallery and Café. “The idea came to us while we were sitting in the café actually,” says Rehan Mudannayake, giving us a quick interview earlier that evening. “We wanted a space that would invite people to come and really immerse themselves in the art instead of drifting off to socialise.” True to their word, the ingeniously named Hot Butter Collective (as they came to call themselves) delivered on that promise with In Space. The exhibition (which sprawled over the gallery and café area) was set up as a maze of sorts, beginning with Poornima Jayasinghe’s obstacle course ‘Obstructions, extractions’ made of wood, cardboard and twine that guests squeezed and ducked their way through to arrive at Shanika Perera’s ‘Bill Boats’, a participatory piece that required us to stick tiny little paper boats onto a foam board in whatever manner we chose. We are later told that Shanika had accumulated four years’ worth of receipts which she used for her piece. Read more