Bringing Sri Lanka into the global discourse of photography

An accomplishment to celebrate as Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra’s Veins of Influence, Colonial Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in Early Photographs and Collections enters the public domain. The publication represents the celebrated result of three years of research by author, Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra, a noted scholar and cultural entrepreneur, who has realized through this writing a ‘life time’s fascination with the photograph, encounter with it and its collecting.”

The publication features over 450 images from seminal collections including the: Royal Collection Trust; Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford; Royal Commonwealth Society, Cambridge University Library; Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; and The Rothschild Archives. In addition to these UK collections, the publication includes early photographs from important local family collections and period publications and a chapter survey of Julia Margaret Cameron’s Ceylon Women. The collections are mainly those of ‘influencers’ and the writing considers images by both studio photographers and hobbyists, for commercial and non-commercial purposes. The writing is accessible and also scholarly, making the book suitable for a wide audience.

Ganendra herself has an interesting inter-disciplinary background. Ganendra is Sri Lankan born and lives in Malaysia. She read law at Cambridge University (1987) and qualified as a Barrister and New York Attorney. She was the first Sri Lankan to be appointed to the Tate Gallery (UK) Acquisitions Committee (SAAC) and has served on numerous judging panels including for the Commonwealth Arts Award and as a nominator for the Sovereign Art Prize and Aga Khan Architecture Awards. She was most recently a Chevening Fellow at Oxford and has held numerous visiting positions at the University of Oxford, including at: the History of Art Department, St. Catherine’s College and the Pitt Rivers Museum.

She has decades of cultural programming experience including exhibition and scholarship, with notable focus on Sri Lanka. Through specific multi-disciplinary projects, including the Vision Culture Artist Residency Programme and the UNESCO Observatory endorsed Vision Culture Lectures, she has worked to bring into the global creative discourse, the creative practises and histories of understudied regions. She has pioneered exhibitions of Sri Lankan art in Malaysia, the USA and UK, most recently ‘Image & Identity, (Early colonial photography)’ at the Museum of Oxford, Oxford, UK.

Shalini Ganendra

This pioneering monograph brings a rich array of early images of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) into the global discourse of photography, pairing a striking lens of visual appreciation with distinctly humanizing perspectives. She said at the Colombo launch that her hope is that this book will bring focus on Sri Lanka as an important participant in world history and its telling.

In these pages, Ganendra surveys more than 450 early photographs of colonial Sri Lanka, from important collections, most of which have never been published or otherwise come into the public view, until now. Her focus on the collecting dynamic provides novel perspectives that humanize the image through the nature of their collectors and their related journeys. Experts who reviewed the book have noted:

“The images explored in ‘Veins of Influence’ testify to the giddy intensity of the British vision of Sri Lanka as a land of extraordinary beauty, inexhaustible natural resources, and unbounded commercial opportunity.

The originality of Ganendra’s approach is to emphasize the role played by these “influencers” as intermediary shapers and distributors of the emerging imperial vision of the new colony. By telling this fascinating story in a language that will be accessible to general and specialist audiences, ‘Veins of Influence’ promises to open an important new chapter in our understanding of 19^th century photography in South Asia and globally.”

Christopher Phillips

Former Senior Curator, International Centre of Photography, New York City

This seminal publication is for specialists (including scholars, collectors, curators) and general audiences. Ganendra’s unusual analysis of these collections adds another layer of understanding of the viewing and imaging of Ceylon specifically, but also offers a general approach to colonial image. This publication promises a visual journey that not only informs through the beauty of black and white imaging, but also through the dynamics of impression, considering personal influences that operate on and through these images, including through our own engagement.

“Shalini Ganendra has meticulously scoured extant public and private archives in the UK and Sri Lanka to uncover the various manners that Sri Lanka, or colonial Ceylon, was represented through the earliest photographic records in the 19^th century. until the mid-20^th century. advent of political independence. As such, she has created a visual documentation of great value for understanding how the country and its evolving cultures were rendered. It is, thereby, a very constructive historical contribution of lasting significance that enriches our awareness not only of indigenous subjects, but the manners chosen by Westerners to represent the country-at-large.”

Prof. John Clifford Holt

William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Humanities in Religion and Asian Studies Emeritus
Bowdoin College (USA)

“Dr Anil Seal, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and historian of modern India, who has a layman’s interest in the early photographic archives of the Indian Empire, welcomes this valuable monograph on collections of photographs of colonial Ceylon. It will be of compelling interest to all those who study the history of Sri Lanka, or have the opportunity to visit that Emerald Isle.”

Dr Anil Seal

Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and Historian of Modern India

The Colombo launch for the publication hosted by the British Council on September 14^th, saw a wonderfully eclectic crowd of ambassadors, cultural leaders, politicians, collectors and academics. Ganendra thought it critical to have a local publisher bring the book to the global platform and chose local stalwart Neptune Publishing Pvt Ltd.

The book will be available online as well as in local book shops: Vijitha Yapa, Barefoot, Sarasavi, M D Gunasena, Sooriya. The next few months will see a series of international launches in major cities including: London, Kuala Lumpur, Washington D.C. and New York. An E-Book version of the publication will be available in November.

• Neptune Publications Pvt Ltd. ISBN: 978-624-6335-44-1
• Pages: 258 with over 450 images; Hardcover Limited Edition: 1000 copies
• Retail Price US $42 (SLR 13,500)
• Bookshops: Vijitha Yapa, Barefoot, Sarasavi, M D Gunasena, Sooriya,
• Order on line : https://neptunepublications.com/product/veins-of-influence/; https://store.goodreads.lk/product/veins-of-influence and soon on AMAZON.COM

See LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shalini-amerasinghe-ganendra-618b467/?originalSubdomain=my