The Geoffrey Bawa Trust recently welcomed a mix of local and international guests across Colombo and Bentota for a weekend-long launch of To Lunuganga Season 3. To Lunuganga is a multi-season program dedicated to the 75th anniversary of Geoffrey Bawa’s garden, and its final phase began with a series of tours, performances, installation launches, culinary experiences, and more.
The Colombo portion of the weekend took place on July 11 at the Geoffrey Bawa Trust’s new office space, a home designed by Geoffrey Bawa for lawyer Aellian Kannangara. The home, which will be retitled as The Geoffrey Bawa Space for Art, Architecture, and Ecology, hosted guests for an evening of reflecting on the Trust’s work and enjoying the Tree Talks listening room, an interactive audio installation featuring each episode and corresponding memorabilia from the Lunuganga-centric podcast.
Events at Lunuganga ran on July 13 and July 14. The weekend included two installation launches: Botany and Batik: the Living Archives of Ena de Silva in collaboration with the Ena de Silva Foundation and artist Salome Nanayakkara at No. 5 at Lunuganga and Saudade: Encountering the Haunting Presence of Prince Dorovana by artist ChathuriNissansala in the Lunuganga Reading Room. Nissansala also guided two Queering the Garden tours with the Geoffrey Bawa Trust Senior Design and Communications Manager Thilini Perera, and artist Firi Rahman offered two tours of his installation In between: the existence of Firdaus. Renowned musician Ravibandu Vidyapathi led a 14-piece orchestra through a performance of music from the 2004 Lunuganga film Salt River, and Colombo-based restaurant GINI served sundowner cocktails in addition to a ticketed seven-course dinner. GINI returned to the garden on Sunday to cater an afternoon picnic with free cocktails (from Rockland Distilleries) and a deejay set by Ruvin de Silva. Guests also had the option of completing a scavenger hunt designed by the Geoffrey Bawa Trust’s Youth Advisory Board. The launch event precedes more programming centred around the garden in the coming months.
