EUNIC Sri Lanka together with Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts presents the fourth edition of Cinnamon Colomboscope, a contemporary and multidisciplinary arts festival that takes place in Colombo. This year, the festival will be titled Testing Grounds: Art and Digital Cultures in South Asia and Europe and will be held from 25 August to 1 September.

Digital technology plays a significant role as Sri Lanka seeks to reimagine its future and find its unique position in an increasingly globalised, business-driven world. As in all other fields, the arts too will respond to the changes brought on – among others – by digitisation. This year, Cinnamon Colomboscope will provide ‘testing grounds’ for a new liaison between contemporary art and digital technology in Sri Lanka.

The main venue for the festival will be at the General Post Office, Fort; an iconic colonial building erected in 1895 and unused for the last 20 years. Visitors will be able to engage with audio-visual, responsive and interactive installations as well as image-based artwork in an extensive exhibition. Over 50 Sri Lankan and international artists will contribute to this year’s programme including screenings of experimental films, audio-visual performances and an online exhibition that can be accessed from anywhere. Through a series of workshops and public conversations, the festival will foster knowledge exchange between Sri Lankan and foreign artists, local and international technology specialists and the audience.

Cinnamon Colomboscope 2016 will be curated by Susanne Jaschko, a renowned expert in the field of media arts who can look back on an impressive list of international art events and exhibitions. “Testing Grounds,” she explains, “will be experimental in nature, and rich in contrast. For most local and South Asian artists, working with electronic and digital media is a new and widely unchartered field, while artists in Europe have been working with new media for over 25 years. Cinnamon Colomboscope will create an awareness of the impacts that digital technologies have on our societies and cultures – among which are data privacy and ownership issues – which need to be addressed in Sri Lanka.”

Established in 2012, Cinnamon Colomboscope is a festival that evolves and changes shape with a new curator each year.

Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts is the title sponsor of Cinnamon Colomboscope and this event is organised by EUNIC Sri Lanka comprising the Goethe-Institute, British Council and Alliance Française de Kotte. The festival is supported by contributions from the John Keells Foundation, Cinnamon Life, Art TV, Swiss Embassy, Dutch Embassy, Turkish Embassy, German Embassy Teheran and the University of Quebec. The festival is held in venue partnership with the Postal Department.

The detailed program for the festival will be announced soon. Please visit the website www.cinnamoncolomboscope.com  for updates on the program.

“Slave Island contained a mud village, an excellent parade ground and two gentlemen’s villas. One of these had been built by the Dutch as a Freemason’s Lodge”

– Century volume of Colombo Municipal Council by H.A.J. Hulugalle published in 1965

The Victoria Masonic Temple is situated in Colombo on Sir Mohamed Macan Markar Mawatha. It is housed between the Christ Church and Al-Ameen Vidyalaya . The banquet hall of Grand Lodge and Masonic Temple to the Sri Lankan chapter of arguably the world’s oldest and most prestigious fraternity will open its doors to the audience of Cinnamon Colomboscope 2015 for the festival segment The city.Identity.Urbanity. To date, this Temple functions as the Head Quarters of the Freemason Lodges across Sri Lanka.

Masonic identity, ritual and tradition was carried across the seas to Sri Lanka by British planters according to sources at the premises, written records may indicate otherwise leaving one to navigate through speculative histories. The very first Masonic Lodge in Sri Lanka was set at the site named the Sphinx Lodge in 1861 (certain literature traces roots of Freemasonry to ancient Egypt), thus the Irish constitution of Freemasons was established in Colombo. It was followed by the St. Johns Lodge in 1839 of the English constitution and the Bonnie Doon Lodge of the Scottish Masons. To house these three lodges in the city of Colombo, the Victoria Masonic Temple was constructed in 1901.

The term Lodge as described by its administrative secretary in Masonic understanding stands for an Association. According to him, the Freemason Movement headed by the Worshipful Master of the Lodge is an Association which is non-political and non-religious. However, a pre-requisite of entrance to this elite club (restricted to men) is belief in a Supreme Being, regardless of which name one may ascribe to it. Reference to the Freemason movement in the Sinhalese language reads Siyaluma Agamkiyanne Sandhanaya, which loosely translated to an alliance of many religions.

The main doors of the Lodge lead to a grand hall showcasing the emblems of the sixteen Lodges across Colombo, Kandy and Kurunegala. A grand wooden stairwell leads to a floor of which houses its centuries old library. This library extensively covers Freemason history, antiquities, jurisprudence and literature. The classic well preserved bookcases house literature brought from London by the first Freemasons to Colombo which is still used by members.

Erected in 1901, the Victoria Masonic Temple surpasses the Antiquities Ordinance with regard to historical buildings in urban areas being over a hundred years old to prevent demolition in the face of urban redevelopment.

Cinnamon Colomboscope is a rare occasion of public gathering at the Lodge banquet hall.

By: Ramla Wahab-Salman