Scrubland: Tavish Gunasena’s Counter Narrative of the East Coast

Is there such a thing as a quiet image? Sri Lanka is perpetually sold as an image: a pristine, tropical fantasy of golden beaches, ancient ruins and picturesque wildlife. Yet this glossy, commodified lens, often a hangover from the colonial era, fails to capture the complex existence of the people who inhabit these spaces. This sanitised visual narrative is what photographer Tavish Gunasena seeks to challenge in his new exhibition, Scrubland: East Coast Essays at the Barefoot Gallery. Scrubland is a non-linear, non-narrative photography series, serving as a living archive of histories and mythologies centred on the Southeast coast, particularly…

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