2025
found objects
38 x 50 x 25 cm
| Precarity and an uncanny tension between belonging and unbelonging are evoked in Dystopian Inheritance, an assemblage of objects invariably suggestive of the domestic such as bottles, teapots, ornaments, and an inverted plastic crown. These objects, undoubtedly imbued with memory, appear mismatched: salvaged and re-oriented, re-staged and re-contextualised. Yet as components which seemingly should not co-exist, together, they project an unsettling sense of authority and order.
Granted dominion independence under the British crown in 1948, the country inherited not liberation but a carefully stage-managed dystopian legacy. Dystopian Inheritance reflects on Sri Lanka’s paradoxical 1948 independence by confronting the enduring colonial legacies of the island’s past, drawing upon remnants from the successive Portuguese (1505-1685), Dutch (1685-1796) and British (1796-1948) occupations. The sculptural components reveal how the ghosts of empirical rule persist— not only through material remains, but through inherited hierarchies, aesthetics, and moral codes that imbue the social and cultural Observing how sovereignty has taken shape in Sri Lanka’s post-colonial statehood, Dystopian Inheritance questions how a nation can begin to build an authentic sense of self when its very foundations remain entangled within the structures imposed by colonial rule. (Text: Tia Madden) Made with thanks to Anita Johnson and Liz Jenid’s Art Studio. Commissioned by Penrith Regional Gallery. |
 Jagath Dheeraasekara, Dystopian Inheritance, Installation view, A River is a Witness, Penrith Regional Gallery, 2025. Photo: Silversalt Photography |