July 23, 2013 · 2:05 am
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Black Memories: July 1983

GROUNDVIEWS, 18 July 2013

In August this year, Groundviews will launch a compelling collection of content to commemorate 30 years since Black July. The content will feature original podcasts, photography and writing on a dedicated website. Building from the critically acclaimed Moving Images two years ago, Groundviews brought together leading documentary filmmakers, photographers, activists, theorists and designers, in Sri Lanka and abroad, to focus on just how deeply the anti-Tamil pogrom in 1983 has shaped our imagination, lives, society and polity.

black july --GV Photo by Natalie Soysa, for Groundviews

The resulting content, featuring voices never captured before, marrying  rich photography, video, audio and visual design with constitutional theory, story-telling and memorialising, has no historical precedent. Curated by Groundviews, the project is an attempt to use digital media and compelling design to remember the inconvenient, and in no small way, acts of daring, courage and resistance during and after Black July.

An exhibition will be held in Colombo in August to launch the project website (which will also serve as an archive for the narratives). It is hoped that over the coming year, what’s selected for display in the exhibition will travel around Sri Lanka, and hopefully, even beyond. More details of the project, producers and exhibition will be posted on Groundviews in the coming weeks.  The project will feature,

A photographer and researcher working together to capture the narrative around and from,

  • The only surviving senior most female ex-combatant, who joined the LTTE after 1983 pogrom. Her husband too was a combatant and surrendered in May 2009, though she hasn’t heard anything about him since. Black July in 1983 was a turning point for her. She gave up her education and joined the LTTE. She has fought numerous battles – even after getting married and giving birth to children – and got badly injured.
  • An elderly Tamil woman who has lost her belongings, including sarees and jewellery during the 1983 pogrom. After 1983, she and her family have moved to the North and lived there for awhile. She is now back in Colombo, where the memories of Black July continue to haunt her. She has struggled hard to regain her lost identity as a woman and as a Tamil, and still feels its loss.

A renowned architect exploring the concept of deities in the shaping of Sri Lanka, which will include,

  • Exploring the architecture of cities and understand the reaction of societies towards lesser deities and demons who occupy spaces and create perspectives that also influence and shape the form of society.
  • Explore the influence and transformation of Jaffna, Galle and Colombo, directed by their deities and greater gods such as nature, after the events in 1983.
  • Create three very large canvas prints that will focus on the concepts of deities and their influence on Sri Lanka, especially on Jaffna, Galle and Colombo.

A photographer and researcher working together,

  • Capturing compelling stories, through podcasts, of a few individuals who lived through Black July. The audio and accompanying photography will refocus attention on what happened in Black July by recording the lives of ordinary people, their actions and emotions.

A female activist and researcher,

  • Document unspoken acts of heroism that took place 30 years ago, including the stories of people and places that provided shelter to those who were at risk of being killed.
  • Produce a series of photo essays consisting of a three-part segment that will depict three locations where riots took place in July 1983.
  • Use of archival footage in order to visualise, as far as possible, the locations as they were in 1983

A photographer who collaborated with Groundviews on Moving Images will work on,

  • Highlighting “Sri Lanka’s moral-intellectual vacuum, the absence of sanity and decency, the negative stereotyping and scapegoating and the deliberate dissolution of individual identities” from a Muslim perspective.
  • Focus on 1983 as a decisive point in time for the Muslims of the country.
  • Content in the form of a narrative portraiture series adopting the audio slideshow format, which would consist of black and white photography with singular voices.

A unique Sri Lankan collective using photography to capture narratives around development will,

  • Explore the development and usage of information and communications Technologies (ICTs) in Sri Lanka over the last thirty years through a combination of original photographs and compelling narratives
  • Explore the use of different types of ICTs today and how it has or hasn’t altered the social and economic context of Sri Lanka, which will, in a broad sense, aim to resonate with the causes and long-term effects of the July 1983 pogrom.
  • Create individual features that will visually narrate the influence of ICTs on individuals or groups at national, regional and local levels across Sri Lanka

A documentary filmmaker and photographer residing in Switzerland will look at,

  • Perspectives of the 1983 Pogrom by the Sri Lankan diaspora community in Switzerland and France.
  • Ten individual stories from Muslim, Tamil and Sinhala members of the diaspora capturing their memories of Black July, and how it impacted their lives, even when living outside Sri Lanka.

Two activists and photographers collaborating to,

  • Explore narratives of women and men that have not been hitherto explored in the context of 1983 and the three decades that followed,
  • Photograph sites and landscapes that are often featured in personal narratives around Black July,
  • Audio interviews and photographs focusing on, but not limited to the themes of gender norms, sexuality, sexual orientation, masculinities and violence.
  • Each of the productions will feature an intergenerational and multi-ethnic interview of a minimum of one individual selected from the following five groups: 1. Family, 2. Activism, 3. Art and Literature, 3. Victims and Survivors, 4. Spirituality

A leading constitutional theorist paired with a visual designer to look at,

  • Visualising to what degree Sri Lanka’s legal and constitutional architecture has changed since July 83.
  • A timeline of key constitutional moments since July 1983, including constitutional amendments, important elections, minority representation (also in local government), bills presented, passed and rejected, and extra-constitutional methods and means through which governance has been altered and moments like the end of the war in May 2009. Each constitutional moment identified will be anchored to a score noting how much it can help prevent or contribute to another pogrom.

ALSO SEE http://groundviews.org/2013/07/18/30-years-ago-an-unprecedented-look-at-black-july/ … for Comments on this Announcement

Also the WEB SITE ……. http://sacrificialdevotionnetwork.wordpress.com/… And its HORRIFIC PICTORIALS in http://www.flickr.com/photos/sacrificialdevotion/

PLUS

3 Comments

Filed under accountability, communal relations, education, ethnicity, historical interpretation, life stories, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, racist thinking, riots and pogroms, sri lankan society, trauma, unusual people, women in ethnic conflcits, zealotry

3 responses to “Black Memories: July 1983”

  1. Pingback: Black July 83: Two Statements in The NATION | Thuppahi's Blog

  2. malaka
    July 23, 2013 at 9:08 am

    Its very nice to see ‘ground views’ as usual and always tell the story and stories from one side…Has Ground views ever made visuals of the acts of terrorism which ALL lankans suffered at the hands of the LTTE and its int Emigre supporters..Acts that are equally Horrific as those committed by Thugs in 1983.. in some instances the acts of terrorism against civilians and soldiers(not in combat) are on ecstasy compared to 1983.. why does ‘ground views’ never show the story and tragedy form the soldiers point of view.. who help defend this nation from acknowledged terrorism..when will sections of the LTTE emigre funded NGO’s and their apologist every come to turn of the suffering of the other for 30 years by the world most Ruthless terrorist outfit…the apologist ground views in many instances given and told the stories of the LTTE combatants yet always have ignored the Armed forces personal bore the LTTE ‘shock and awe’ terror.. they have ignored such stories of the soldiers off duty on their way to a Christmas party been blown up by LTTE combatants far away from the Battle field.. these apologist will never bring to life of the victims of the other side by giving them a name and telling their stories..as it would go against their narrative of demonizing..and dry up their NGO LTTE emigre funds.. this has to be the only possibility for the sheer neglect.

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  3. malaka
    July 23, 2013 at 9:16 am

    ‘But while that sort of indulgence to the racists of 1983 was appalling, equally negative are those Tamil nationalists who play down the exceptional nature of what happened thirty years ago, and present it as simply something in a continuum of Sinhala persecution of Tamils. That is nonsense, parallel to the nonsense of those who do not recognize the exceptional nature of the LTTE, and use it to attack all Tamil politicians. We should not allow such obfuscation of the difference between Tamil political agitation and the terrorism of the LTTE.’ EXTRACT FROM Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha M.P.’

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