The obstacles occurring in global cultural flows due to the COVID-19 pandemic disclose the unpredictable and inconsistent nature of globalisation. The reductions in people’s mobility are leading to new dialogues with their nation-states. In turn, nation-states are seeking to secure their economic position through a strengthening of nationalism during the pandemic. The newly emerged circumstances of these interrelationships of the global and the local signify the potential for new networks. Drawing on Arjun Appadurai’s reimagining of cosmopolitanism as a move beyond the insularity and exclusions prompted by cultural difference, this paper focusses on Sri Lanka as one context that has confronted a decline in cosmopolitanism due to civil unrest since the declaration of independence in 1948. To rebuild the cosmopolitanism of the different cultures that make up Sri Lanka the paper explores the early cosmopolitanism of historical Sri Lanka through traditional jewellery artefacts, with a specific focus on traditional Sri Lankan bridal regalia. As a resource for future generations to reimagine the history and future of cosmopolitanism in Sri Lanka, the paper discusses my practice-based methodology of annotated visual documentation of the cosmopolitan craft traditions embodied in the traditional iconography of the bridal regalia. The purpose of the research is to record and preserve the Sri Lankan iconography of the jewellery that makes up traditional bridal regalia and to reimagine and renew cosmopolitanism through an intercultural dialogue based on a rich craft heritage in a context that has been continuously shaped by the dynamics of globalisation.
Reimagining the Cosmopolitanism of Sri Lanka Through Cultural Artefacts
Inoka Samarasekara, Assoc Prof Katherine Moline, Dr Zoe Veness (University of New South Wales)
2021 Conference