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KNOWLEDGE BANK > TIME & SPACE > RESIDENCIES > GUYAN PORTER RESIDENCY

GUYAN PORTER RESIDENCY

Kai-Oi Jay Yung speaks to Guyan Porter about his residency at Chandrasevana Creation Centre in Sri Lanka. Guyan Porter has been making connections throughout the world... travelling extensively ever since his 1998 residency to Russia. Travelling itself has become critical to understanding diverse art contexts and cultural settings, enabling Guyan to explore unorthodox environments. Previously President of Scottish Artists Union and Network Coordinator for the NAN Initiative, he is well equipped for wider economical synchronisation and social altercations accompanying shifting between the local and the global. Collaborating on agenda is... the way that I work... [investigating] conflicts between internal and external authorities.
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Guyan John Porter, Portraits, Sri Lanka.

Guyan John Porter, Portraits, Sri Lanka.

Kai-Oi Jay Yung First published: a-n Collections September 2008 Writer(s), artists, photographers and AN: The Artists Information Company 2008 All rights reserved.

In December 2006, Guyan began a two-month residency at Chandrasevana Creation Centre, Hikkaduwa, southern Sri Lanka, resulting in a collection of photographic portraits of locals towards a book about his residency. In 2004, a 9.3 undersea Indian Ocean earthquake generated a tsunami portending towering killer waves that extinguished lives, livelihoods and homes from Sumatra to Somalia. 201,901 families in Sri Lanka alone were affected with damaged housing and endemic displacement. The tsunami capsized freighters, stripped mountainside of vegetation and tore apart coral bays sustaining fishing villages, signalling a global catastrophe urging an unprecedented global response. This response came from organisations springing into action when in-country mechanisms could not cope. Disasters and Emergency Committee (DEC) aid agencies were despatched for effective and swift humanitarian assistance. Strategic fundraising saves lives; DEC raised 390 million, providing housing, food and medical services. Following his tsunami experience, (We were with forty friends caught in... Hikkaduwa. Our children were missing... Over 2,000... died within three kilometres of us.) Neil Butler set up the charity Hikkaduwa Area Relief Fund (HARF) to support local community as it recovered. Within three months, HARF internationally fundraised 40,000, subsidising local farmers, mains water for Displaced Persons Camps and the founding of antenatal clinics. Besides relief aid, Neils UZ art event background incited him to introduce art into HARFs long term regeneration projects.
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Guyan John Porter, Neil presents first event.

Guyan Porter, Sambadi.

related resources Features: - Social space - The rise of the Young Community Artist (yCa) In html format: - Central Asian Project - Community engagement - Dias & Riedweg: Border zones and poetic encounters - Gayle Chong Kwan: Underground exchanges - Rachel Grant and Stoke-on-Trent - Risking Radio Nights

Guyan was selected for a residency and helped set up Hikkaduwas Chandrasevana Centre as an arts resource for residencies, [with] creative ways of adding to the various communities. His, desire to help in some way... became, a residency project and... assisting in an advisory capacity where possible. The host centres offerings and expectations are customary; encouraging collaboration between art forms... recovering members of the community... activities celebrating Sri Lankan culture... [of] economic benefit through tourism. For artists, Chandrasevana facilitates accommodation, equipment, information to working in Sri Lanka, holding ...databases of Sri Lankan artists... welcoming engagement with artists. Events promote work in Sri Lanka

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and...international markets. Neil cites the opportunity to establish relationships, meanwhile Guyan describes an open,
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for whom, in what way did Sri Lanka provide a meaningful context for Guyans practice? HARF stipulates artists give a minimum of one day a week working with local communities and make a piece of work enhanced by being created in Sri Lanka. Does this concretise an organic, intangible process; curtail creative autonomy and hurry the half baked? We organised ... installations and processions for the [centre] opening, half way through my residency. Cultural scales are balanced too; local artist Prasentha was transported to Glasgows Merchant City Festival; an exchange barter of engagement and delivery. International to local practice is difficult to elucidate; setting cultural context as defining parameters is not enough. What factors determine integration, how is this process communicated? Surely ideas and work developed can only ever truly be received on site? HARF stipulates, all work... will always be presented... to the local community. Following lives crossed and context internalised, Guyans residency portraits were, images of people who live and work there... combined with interviews.
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For Neil, a rich interaction that

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produced some powerful work. Its not the first time HARF has ended by a photography book; in 1994 Ian McMillan, prompted donations and encouraged tourist return with 5 Images of Sri Lanka. There must be more value lurking somewhere? Guyans guarded interview leaves me intent to delve. I would need total editorial control... the residency I did was complex. Guyan omits detail, then ...a war not really reported in the western press... has escalated dramatically. On investigation, the backdrop is, in fact, tsunami tragedy embroiled in violent civil war. North and East tensions between Sinhalese majority and LTTE Tamil separatists (Tigers of Tamil Eelam) equate bloodshed of 100,000 lives over twenty years. Rehabilitation endeavours are themselves impeded; overcrowded welfare centres, families unable to return home, women complaining of sexual harassment. Aid agencies accuse the government of complicity, failing to provide... relief or work to all the victims. Despite official ceasefire, no peace no war, a climate of impunity reigns, allowing unchallenged human rights violations.
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Action Against Hunger

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found aid workers lying face down and shot at close range and only recently Amnesty International urged the UN Human
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Rights Council to end government and LTTE abuses. Guyans intimations sharpen focus. It was, impossible to fully understand the complexity... of tsunami and the war in Sri Lanka prior to going, no matter... [the] research... communication and conversations. Environmental degradation, community life disintegration... this desperate situation is Chandrasevanas real working context. HARF treads carefully, operating within Sri Lankan Government Policy and consultation with... UN and British High Commission. Simultaneously, its businesses programme is a ...more sensitive area mainly concentrat[ing] on employment of women.
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How may Guyan communicate contextual circumstance without jeopardizing HARFs endeavors and practice integrity? It would have been impossible to address the terror of the tsunami, although that was something... I thought about a lot. Panning out, resolution appears to lie in the suffering of the locals. That Guyan is interested in facilitating individual and community interaction with political structures is pertinent. Suffering here is endemic; a local imparts, I die each morning when I wake up. Internationl Child Art Foundation (ICAF)s development of Healing Arts acknowledges the 1.5 million
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survivors needing psychological help beyond humanitarian relief. People are central to HARF; Guyan and Neil talk of lifelong friendships and Chandrasevanas long-term psychological and social consequences. Dialogue concludes, need for a... psychological support that... creative projects could offer... physical rebuilding... was the easy part of a much more complex process. The context was one of giving back to inhabitants who offered... help in spite of their own grief; to enable the vulnerable to rebuild health, families, and communities towards the future. Chandrasevana adds greatly to rejuvenation and healing of the area since, its a place where [people] can relax... talk about what has happened. IT equipment replaces failing words; restoring confidence, ebbing away experiences. Exposing people to new ideas and technology... creative processes... is itself psychologically positive.
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Consequently, Guyans portraits take on a potent cathartic role. After investigating a potential arts festival and peace tour, the most feasible, pertinent, meaningful outlet was, something more intimate... interviews and portraits seemed like a good way to work with people... discuss experiences. When asked why only face portraits, his reply communicates a connection enabling individuals to acknowledge, move on. The face conceals... reveals. Many people... were left with physical scars... I was more interested in... how people survive trauma, mentally and physically... How we transform and adapt. The portraits may be the physical end product, but not the sum of his experience. Guyans residency is not social working, nor interchange art for education, though artists are perhaps social entrepreneurs. Our non-formulaic insights are catalysts to enrich and transform daily social environment; tapping into underlying human conscience. The centre supports peace between... communities of our island... opportunity to celebrate our own culture and understand the lives... and beliefs of others.
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Fellow resident Hugh Watt reinforces, the

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centre [was]... to do with them.

The real question is how to measure the tangible transformational value of art, to what extent it benefits lives and catalyses the artists development? As paid professionals, we are answerable to intercultural responsibilities to substantiate our sectors health. Transposition to new social environments provides fertile space for renegotiating audience, environment and process. It can be a hazardous trajectory, though, when context is political massacre, poverty, and natural disaster conundrum; how to assimilate and reconfigure key issues when so removed from a familiar framework? Sri Lankan artist, Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, received death threats for staging the allegorical drama The Trojan Women. It is the most powerful contribution... I can make as an artist to the efforts to end war.
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Guyan recognises arts instrumental role in proliferating societal awareness. In governmental terms, art is a bargain... strengthening economy, addressing social problems and sustaining an international brand. Prosperity very much depends on, ...skills and outlook when propagating more art to more people in more places. Are contexts so removed that all outcome value is lost in a cultural chasm? Ultimately, Guyans resulting residency work speaks of humility towards how people overcome adversity... when so much has been taken away. Any resituating local and international is a laboratorial yardstick, and residencies are all about context... That context will always be unique.
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Kai-Oi Jay Yungs practice splinters sculpture, installation,

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video, performance; confronting participants with politically playful interventionist dialogue that catalyse a scatological reassessment of identity. Intercultural engagement is central to her socio-political exchange with local communities. Recent residencies include British Council invited Libya exchange, long-term China project with Grizedale Arts and Vitamin Creative Space, and EU Funded multi-destination Open-Here. Exhibitions include Nightcomers, Istanbul Biennial, 2007, The Whitechapel Gallery, London, Arnolfini, Bristol and Scope, New York. She is a critical writer and Tate and Liverpool Biennial education facilitator. www.myspace.com/kaioi www.myspace.com/paradisestories www.happystacking.tv
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Porter, G, interview with author, April 2008 Porter, G, interview. April 2008

Lambourne, H, Tsunami: Anatomy Of A Disaster, 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4381395.stm

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Annan, K, U.N. Secretary General, www.lankalibrary.com/news.htm last accessed: July 2008.

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Disaters and Emergency Committee www.dec.org.uk/item/32 last accessed: July 2008.

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Butler, N, interview with author, 2 May 2008

www.hikkaduwa.org.uk/alpha.php?articleid=2 2008. UZ Events develops festivals and events that make a considerable impact on Scotlands cultural landscape.
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Ibid Butler, N, interview May 2008 Porter, G, interview April 2008

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7 min Chandrasevana Film, http://youtube.com /watch?v=v6z4NyoPSVQ 2008

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Butler, N, 2008. Ibid Porter, G, 2008. Butler, N, 2008. Porter, G, 2008.

Price, S, Scant Help For Tsunami Victims, BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific /4671884.stm last accessed: July 2008.
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Ibid UN-backed report

International Alert Sri Lanka, 2007 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War

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www.cafod.org.uk/emergencies/asia-tsunami/cafodsaddened-2006-08-09
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Amnestys bid alongside Human Rights Watch, 2007 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War

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Porter, G, 2008. Ibid Ibid Ibid

Chakravarty, Lt Col N, Tsunami survivor, India Remembers Tsunami Victims, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world /south_asia/4560414.stm last accessed July 2008.
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ICAF; International Child Art Foundation, 2007

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www.icaf.org
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Butler, N, 2008.

Porter, G, 2008. Also known as post traumatic stress disorder

Arabellas Diary, www.childrensworldcharity.org/srilanka/02jetlag.php last accessed July 2008.

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Porter, G, 2008. Ibid Ibid

Glasgow-based Sri Lankan Buddhist monk Venerable Rewatha, Hikkaduwa, www.hikkaduwa.org.uk

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Watt, H, interview with author, May 2008

Wijesiriwardana, P, Sri Lankan Artist Speaks About Death Threats By Sinhala Extremists, www.wsws.org/articles /2003/dec2003/sril-d12.shtml last accessed July 2008.
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Guyan Porter, Comment, a-n Magazine, 2006, p.4 Ibid Interview with Guyan, op. cit Ibid

www.hikkaduwa.org.uk www.chandrasevana.com www.guyanporter.co.uk back to top

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