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 around Arugam Bay. This quiet work invites the viewer to grapple with the symbiotic relationship between the natural world and societal traditions, asking what it means to be a steward of this island in an era of relentless development and image saturation.
Reflecting on modern image consumption in the digital age, he believes that every image has a caloric weight. “When you see an image, you ingest it and it’s there inside of you,” Gunasena says. He argues that the volume of images – upto more than a hundred – we consume in the first ten minutes of waking daily – is unnatural. He describes this saturation as visual obesity. “You can see too much. And I believe as humans, we see too much. We actually have way too much access to images from all over the world. You can’t care about all the wars, all the starvation, all the famine, everything that we are made to care about. Because you get fatigued.”
This fatigue, Gunasena argues, creates a polarising effect where true, local empathy is replaced by global, performative burnout. Scrubland is an intentional retreat from this global noise, directing viewers to a specific, small corner of the island, a biotope richly steeped in myth and history where forgotten legends persist only through endangered oral traditions.
Gunasena’s methodology is defined not just by what he shoots but how he engages with his subjects, an ethical stance born from his critique of historical abuses. When approaching the residents of the East coast Gunasena, who does not speak Tamil and whose Sinhala is limited, had to rely on non-verbal communication and patience. His method was to establish a non-threatening presence before ever lifting the camera, to then be able to capture authentic, un-staged moments. “I would always have the camera be the last thing they see. I would just approach with an inquisitive nature and an open heart.”
This ethical position is a direct response to historical abuses, including the work of globally renowned photographers. Gunasena cites the famous Afghan Girl image by Steve McCurry, expressing disappointment upon learning about the staged nature of his work. This colonial gaze is what Gunasena is resisting. Scrubland challenges this history by engaging with the subjects on their own terms, making the act of photography a form of respectful witnessing.
The aesthetic of Scrubland in gritty black and white photographs removes the images from a fixed, temporal context. Gunasena uses a single, manual lens that mirrors a natural perspective and ensures the entire picture is in focus. This rejects the easy aesthetic of shallow depth of field so that the viewer will grapple with every element of the scene, even those that are non-photogenic.
The exhibition structure is non-narrative, functioning instead as a tapestry or a remix, weaving together unexpected icons to create a local cosmology. Gunasena is inspired by the magical realism of authors like Haruki Murakami and the animations of Studio Ghibli. This is evident in the inclusion of faceless statues juxtaposed with termite mounds that appear to have faces, creating a dialogue between the known spiritual forms and the magical elements of the landscape.
Gunasena also uses the stories embedded in his subjects to challenge accepted, Western-centric historical narratives. He recounts the story of a priest whose tattoo, acquired during his first Pada Yatra pilgrimage at age 18, depicts Lord Skanda. The facial features, Gunasena notes, bear a striking resemblance to some historical representations of Alexander the Great, suggesting a merged mythological history that Western scholarship typically dismisses. Gunasena alludes to Sri Lanka’s forgotten history as a superpower, citing local research on the island’s gravity anomaly and theories of early flight as evidence that we must see in a different way and question in a different way.
The exhibition title places the landscape at the centre of the narrative. “I felt like the main character was the land and the sense of place one felt and so I needed a term that united all of these pictures together in a way that made you immediately think of that sort of landscape.” The scrub is described as thorny, dry, dusty and violent, challenging the paradise vision while also making the concept accessible enough to provoke curiosity.
His inspiration in putting together the exhibition was driven by the desire to tell a Sri Lankan story, and the intention of inspiring a younger generation of artists and storytellers. “We need more Sri Lankan stories. We have enough stories that promote tourism. We need more stories that promote Sri Lankanness.”
Scrubland is an invitation to the urban audience to slow down, to look past the surface of paradise, to acknowledge the complexity, resilience and sanctity of the land and its ancient inhabitants. It is a quiet but powerful act of witnessing, an essential pause in the cycle of image overconsumption, that urges us toward greater environmental stewardship and a more authentic definition of our island identity.
Tavish Gunasena’s Scrubland: East Coast Essays will be on display until December 13 at the Barefoot Gallery.
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