i m at the home and studio of one of sri lanka s most influential artists and activists, jagath weerasinghe. can sri lankans put behind them their bloody past and forge a new and united future? jagath weerasinghe, welcome to hardtalk. i m happy to be here. sitting here in your home, which is also your studio, i wonder how far you ve been influenced as both an artist and an archaeologist by sri lanka s past? i m totally influenced by that. i m totally, yes. everything i do has something to do with the past of sri lanka and the idea of the past, that we keep performing in the present. yeah. but it s notjust sri lanka s past, it s a particularly bloody past that you choose to focus on. why? that is what i call the history of the present. you know, we have a long history coming from, like, fifth century bc, and, you know, there s this great history of sri lanka or south asia. but the 20th century history is i call the history of the present, which is.defines myself and my art and
it was not guilty of concealing information about flight control systems on its 373 max aircraft. flaws in the systems were found to have led to fatal crashes four years ago. now on bbc news, it s hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. iam i am outside colombo, the capital of sri lanka. this beautiful nation has been plunged capital of sri lanka. this beautiful nation has been plunged into capital of sri lanka. this beautiful nation has been plunged into it s capital of sri lanka. this beautiful nation has been plunged into it s worth economic crisis for more than 70 years. it led to widespread process and forced the resignation of the president last year and all this after a long running civil war in which iamat i am at the home is really one of the most influential artist and activist. cancelling can put behind them their bloodied past and forge a new and united future? welcome to hartog. i am happy to be here. welcome to hartog. i am happy to be here- to be he
i m at the home and studio of one of sri lanka s most influential artists and activists, jagath weerasinghe. can sri lankans put behind them their bloody past and forge a new and united future? jagath weerasinghe, welcome to hardtalk. i m happy to be here. sitting here in your home, which is also your studio, i wonder how far you ve been influenced as both an artist and an archaeologist by sri lanka s past? i m totally influenced by that. i m totally, yes. everything i do has something to do with the past of sri lanka and the idea of the past, that we keep performing in the present. yeah. but it s notjust sri lanka s past, it s a particularly bloody past that you choose to focus on. why? that is what i call the history of the present. you know, we have a long history coming from, like, fifth century bc, and, you know, there s this great history of sri lanka or south asia. but the 20th century history is i call the history of the present, which is.defines myself and my art and
have been killed. a metre of fresh snow has fallen, and many areas remain under threat of flooding. president biden has declared a state of emergency, freeing federal aid for the state. those are our top story this hour. now on bbc news, it s time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, with me, zainab badawi. i m just outside colombo, the capital of sri lanka. this beautiful island nation has been plunged into its worst economic crisis for more than 70 years. it led to widespread protests and forced the resignation of the president last year. and all this after a long running civil war in which around 100,000 died. i m at the home and studio of one of sri lanka s most influential artists and activists, jagath weerasinghe. can sri lankans put behind them their bloody past and forge a new and united future? jagath weerasinghe, welcome to hardtalk. i m happy to be here. sitting here in your home, which is also your studio, i wonder how far you ve been influenced as both an artist an
you know, it s a beautiful image of dancing shiva. but he s dancing with sound and smoke, but he s suppressing ignorance, which is very nice. so in this picture, you re referring to, shiva has got his foot on the chest. yeah. on that. there s a particular name for that. ..of that person. ..that person. but, you know, well, he s doing. it s a benign gesture he s doing, but it s still violence. and then you bring that idea, you do war for peace kind of argument, but then you bring that into the 21st century, into democratic politics, it ends up in violence only. because i. with this thing, with this dancing shiva thing, what i m trying to tell the world is don t bring religion too much into democratic politics, because it never.will never help you. it will always support violence in the end. it will justify. yeah. and this theme of conflict is one that recurs a lot