This paper will explore relationships between ecology, sexuality, and decolonisation in the portrayal of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) by queer Sri Lankan photographer Lionel Wendt and queer British anti-imperialist filmmaker Basil Wright, who collaborated together in the 1930s prior to the country’s independence in 1948. In the nineteenth century British colonisers outlawed homosexuality as ‘against the order of nature’ and shifted the island’s economy to mass plantations. At a time when homosexuality was also illegal in the UK, Wendt and Wright’s collaboration reveals how imperial control over desire and the landscape were challenged by photography and film.
Dr Edwin Coomasaru is a historian of modern and contemporary art. He has been awarded Postdoctoral and Research Fellowships at Edinburgh University (2022), the Paul Mellon Centre (2020-22), and the Courtauld Institute of Art (2018-19) — where he earned his PhD in 2018 and co-convenes the Gender & Sexuality Research Group. In 2021 he also worked as a Freelance Research Assistant on an anti-racist and decolonial resource portal for the Association of Art History. He has contributed to Third Text, British Art Studies, Oxford Art Journal, The Irish Times, Irish Studies Review, The Irish Review, Photoworks Annual, Burlington Contemporary, Architectural Review, Source Magazine, and the Barbican’s Masculinities (2020) exhibition catalogue. History of Art Research Seminar Series: Sri Lanka’s Queer Tropics: Lionel Wendt’s Ceylon (1950) and Basil Wright’s Song of Ceylon (1934)
History of Art Research Seminar Series: Sri Lanka’s Queer Tropics: Lionel Wendt’s Ceylon (1950) and Basil Wright’s Song of Ceylon (1934)
University of Edinburgh / Edinburgh College of Art
30 March 2022 at 1330-1430
Online. Open to all
Details here: https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/event/history-art-research-seminar-series-sri-lankas-queer-tropics-lionel-wendts-ceylon-1950-and
For enquiries, contact Malene Nafisi, malene.nafisi@ed.ac.uk
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