‘Scrubland: East Coast Essays’ is an ongoing body of work by photographer Tavish Gunasena. It is a non-linear, non-narrative documentary series that forms a living archive of histories and mythologies centred on Sri Lanka's Southeast Coast.
The exhibition examines the symbiotic relationship between the natural world and societal traditions through land, memory, community, and form. It offers us a conceptual anchor in the notion of an old world breathing beneath the one we know.
Gunasena's work draws attention to coastal communities and the biotopes within which they exist. It attempts to convey a sense of place, one that is richly steeped in myth and history, with forgotten legends living on through endangered oral traditions. Here, the act of photography transcends simple documentation and becomes a form of witnessing, and recording of, ancient continuity.
‘Scrubland’ presents an expansive, local cosmology encompassing the island’s Southeast Coast. In these curated constellations, each subject serves as a lens through which we view Gunasena's iconographic universe. It is a universe that invites reflection on the deep-rooted relationship between the land and its people, the environment, stewardship, and coexistence.
