'THE SHRINE OF INNOCENTS'

THE FIRST MEMORIAL FOR THE VICTIMS OF THE ONGOING CONFLICT IN SRI
LANKA

Going from Battaramulla to Kelaniya or Colombo I pass the location where the memorial 'The Shrine of
Innocents' was built during the last months. So I could see the development of this place, which caught
my interest. Some weeks ago I visited the location with the artist Jagath Weerasinghe - who is responsible
for the concept - and we spoke about the conception and his ideas. From this visit and also from the
participation in the inauguration ceremony I was very much impressed.

On December 10th 1999 the 'Shrine of Innocents' in Battaramulla close to the parliament was
inaugurated.

The Initiators
This site with its architecture, sculpture and installation is meant as a memorial of the victims of
Embilipitiya. (In Embilipitiya - 180 km south of Colombo- 38 children and young adults disappeared
between 1988 and 1989, when the army seized them for suspected antigoverment activism. After a three
year trial, the situation is still not clear. 7 people - including 6 soldiers and a school principal were tried
for abduction but not for murder as the remains of the childen were never found. Residents say, that when
the army shot down the notorious torture chamber with a crushing of the JVP in 1989 they had to get rid
of the illegaly arrested boys. Information taken from an article in The Island: Embilipitiya agony - parents
of missing childs still sullen, sunday Dec, 12th, 1999, page 5.) As it is described in Chandaratne Bandaras
text in the handout the parents from many villages and townships throughout the country made a plea to
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, the Sri Lankan president since 1994, to raise a place for the
commemoration of their children and relatives, who were the victims of Embilipitiya. To realize such a
memorial site is a remarkable initiative of a president during an ongoing conflict.
Furthermore as the author of the handout and the artist himself stress, this memorial cannot be reduced to
the commemoration of one group of victims, but must also embrace "all victims of organized political
violence and terror in all parts of our (the) country, irrespective of region and the communities that were
affected by it." (Quotation out of the text of Chandaratne Bandara in the handout.)
A universal declaration which condemns all ongoing violence and includes all groups of victims.
The only restriction the artist sets with the title is that the shrine is meant only for innocent victims.
Which reminds me of a problem we had in the German discussion commemorating groups of victims who
can be guilty and innocent at the same time, e.g. members of the former German army, the Wehrmacht. A
question which influenced also the discussion about the central holocaust memorial in Berlin in1999.
On the other hand the question is what kind of political function will 'The Shrine of Innocents' have in Sri
Lanka in the future?
In the presence of an ongoing conflict a memorial has at least a double function: on one hand it is meant
as memory for the victims of Embilipitiya for the parents and relatives but also for the whole nation. On
the other hand it makes us aware that basically the same conflict exists today. Which means the function
of this monument is not only commemoration but also might be a chance for a reflection of the present
situation. But under this perspective might it not also implement an acceptance of the situation with the
ongoing conflict?

The location
The location of the memorial is close to the new parliament building, a place of political importance, and
a new established public bathing place beside the main road going from Colombo to Battaramulla, which
give the location also an involvement in every day life.
People pass by, rest beside the lake, become attracted by the memorial during activities of their every day
life.
This involvement means visually that we find a new sculpture of a couple of bathing mermaids at the
bathing place close by as well as big posters of a Coca Cola advertisement and sometimes political
banners at the roundabout - a combination which gives altogether a very lively impression.
But the memorial is still visually strong enough to persist. Looking from outside you see at first an
enclosed grassy hill in front of a peaceful landscape of wetland. I first was reminded of a transformer
station or a bunker. Then you become curious as on one side you notice three big, dark brown guardian
figures, on the opposite side five steps, in bright orange and outside a pile of white sticks.

The site
Coming closer to the entrance you can see a natural stone which displays on a tablet the title `The shrine
of Innocents` in Sinhala, Latin and Tamil letters.
On the right there is a head of a giant, the protector of the law and the people, emerging out of the earth as
far as the top of his shield.
Beside the entrance there are two reliefs of female goddesses, pointing their index fingers to the earth as a
symbolic connection between the events of the past, the present and the future.

Traditionally there are gods used as guardian figures for temples, as can be seen e.g. in Pollonaruwa. This
uncommon use of a goddesses as guardian figure refers to the mythology of the mother figure goddess
Kuveni, who was deprived of her two children.

The visitor is lead inside the memorial by a black paved path. For one moment he finds himself standing
on a small platform which changes his or her standpoint and perspective and might make him or her
aware of his/her own position inside this arrangement.
From this standpoint you realize that there is an iterior: A light open room dominated by bright yellow,
orange and ochre.

Inside the room are two separate fields of 19 white, waist high pedestals (steles) symbolizing the 38
children who were abducted and disappeared between 1988-89 in Embilipitiya. This form of stele is of
Greek origin and was originally used as a gravestone. Today this form is very common in memorials
usually set in a large number, as e.g. also in the latest concept of the memorial for Berlin which consits of
hundreds of steles giving the impression of a moving surface of a sea.

The steles are erecting out of a layer of ochre colored clay objects. Their form and color remind us of
bones. Each of them is mould by the hand of the parents and those involved in art, human rights and
cultural activities who engaged themselves for the victims.

On each top of the steles we see an abstract, oval form which reminds us of a human scull. The irregular
orange layer of their terracotta surface gives them a lively effect.

On the opposite side in front we look onto a white and light yellow triptych with a round carved structure,
which reminds us of a sun, of a universal complete form with a warm and bright effect. Which can also be
seen as a mandala or shri yantra that can be used for concentration and meditation.
In front of this is an altar (mal asna) where people can light oil lamps or offer flowers. On the opposite
walls beside the entrance there are each 25 clay tablets on which the relatives have carved their wishes for
the dead.

The whole structure of this room reminds us of a sacred room but not dedicated to one of the Religions. It
has a concentrating but bright and light atmosphere.Passing the altar we see again the five orange steps
which might remind us in this context of the five steps of cognition of Buddhism.
Opposite the steps the white pile of sticks might remind us of a funeral pile or especially the Sri Lankans
of an old children game: Enclosing an animal or a small sister or brother with wooden sticks until it
escapes. According to the artist a very early form of - innocent(?)- violence and oppression in the society.
An example for hidden, everyday cruelty, which opens the meaning of the commemoration site according
to the intention of the artist to a universal meaning but also implies the ambivalence of victim and
offender in one person.

The visitor is guided through a system of colored paths forming around the pile a shape of an eye.
(This reminds me on a methaphor we have in German:'ein Dorn im Auge sein', which means that there is
something in the eye, that disturbes you and remindes you on something you don't like to think on)

On the farther side of the hill we find a standing human figure, the only real sculpture in this scene. It
depicts a young man, standing straight, looking ahead, with an open jacket showing his flayed, injured,
hurt, breast.
The artist mentioned that he missed in the concept the representation of the individual, who had to suffer
the pain. This is for me a very understandable argument looking at the conceptual, abstract concepts of
memorials in the last ten years where the depiction of the individual was neglected.
And he chooses a position which doesn't show the victim in an oppressed e.g. crawling position, such as
we know them from memorials e.g. by George Segal, where the sculpture orients itself at the striking
pictures of the piles of dead bodies found in the concentration camps after the Second World War.
Jagath chooses the standing upright position showing very much the dignity of the wounded. This
standing position is traditionally used in monuments for statesman.

If we distinguish monuments according to a typology we find three types: equestrian statues, the standing
and the sitting sculptures. In the Western World and probably everywhere else they are distributed
according to their social position: only monarchs and high ranking military men like generals are allowed
to sit on a horse. Statesmen are standing, poets, philosophers and others are sitting.(Cullen 1999, p.31)

I like this idea of giving back the dignity to the violated victim and this straight look into the future. But I
would see this concept of a high evaluation of the body and the individual in the tradition of a western art
concept.

Combining Eastern and Western art traditions and forms

Altogether I see this memorial as a very impressive combination of Eastern and Western art traditions
which support its universal idea. Referring to western art traditions and form we can mention the
sculpture, the pedestials-stelen with the abstract heads and the triptych. On first sight the inner room with
its clear structure and reduced, abstract forms makes it part of contemporary art concepts. But on a closer
look the triptych can also be seen as a mandala, the altar as a mal asna (or the other way round).
This can be seen as a combination of Western and Asian art traditions or as a realization, that basic visual
forms refer to similar meanings and lead the spectator back to essential ideas: The triptych or mandala as
a point of concentration and meditation, the structure of a sacral room as a place for commemoration and
worship, the altar or mal asna, not in a specific religious, but spiritual meaning and so on.

In the outside area there seem to be more forms and symbols referring to Sri Lankan tradition, the
guardian figures, the guardian stones with the snake, the portal figures of the gods etc. Symbols that are
very present and can be found in everyday life like on newly built houses, entrances etc. giving the
meaning of protection. Common symbols that are understood very well and might attract people and
make them interested enough to go inside.
Now it seems interesting to me as Jagath Weerasinghe told me that the workers staying there said that the
people are frightened and talk about evil spirits which are supposed to be in this area.
So the intention of the guardian figures as protectors is contradicted.
Do the people have a bad conscience, are they afraid of their own inherent dark sides or is it merely the
presence of the depicted demons ...?

A part of every day culture

With these aspects the memorial refers very much to the every day culture of Sri Lanka.
They refer to the non-written form of a cultural self-awareness. In the sense that Jan Assmann has defined
the term cultural memory.
(Assman, Jan: das kulturelle Gedächnis. Schrift Erinnerung und politische Identität in den frühen
Hochkulturen, München 1992.)

This cultural memory doesn't exist but has to be created. In the non written aspects of culture the
repetition of something has an important meaning, like the configuration of letters which give words a
persistence. Dance, games, masks, pictures, songs, food, places and rooms, clothes and so on can be part
of the `self assertion`(Selbstvergewisserung) and `self realization` (Selbstvergegenwärtigung) of a
society.

In this context but also as part of a process oriented art form - which was mainly used in the nineties for
memorials - the involvement of the visitor must be mentioned. Already on his way into the memorial he is
supposed to be put on a platform to change his perspective, to become aware of his own standpoint, his
role in this scene. The spectator with his own perception becomes part of the concept. Only with the
reception of an individual does the memorial come alive.

But the most important point in this sense is that the memorial can be used as a place of commemoration.
In all human societies we find the necessity of commemorating ancestors, history and past. But some
cultures stress the importance of commemoration less, others more. The differing importance of
commemoration is a complex system rising out of ritual, mystical, historical, political, sociological and
psychological factors and conditions.

Contemporary Sri Lankan society seems to weave the memory especially of its deaths much more into
every day life than I find in Germany.
The laying out of a dead body in the house, the decoration of the house and the street with pictures and
garlands, the open transport of the coffin or the covered dead body is very much part of street life.
Though we can find traditionally similar rites in Germany e.g. the laying-out. In our days with the
existence of the undertaker the dead body disappears very fast into an invisible technical surrounding and
is no longer visual part of the everyday life.
Also the commemoration of the deaths with advertisements in the newspapers at the anniversary of the
death, the invitation of monks and their ceremonies, the rites in the temple indicate a very lively
commemoration of the deaths by people in Sri Lanka.
As mentioned, basically we find similar rites in Germany e.g. the 1th of November is the memorial day
for all the dead but only older people use this day to light a candle in the graveyard. For the younger
generation this act seems very unusual.
So altogether the commemoration of the deaths which means of its own past and tradition seem for me
very much rigorous in Sri Lanka. It might be that these traditions can be transferred to a universal sense,
if the modern Sri Lankan society doesn't forget or lose its lively traditions of commemorating the
ancestors.
By combining those elements with traditional and modern Sri Lankan and Western art forms, the
memorial might be able to make a contribution to this development.
So the interaction between the memorial and its visitor can be seen as essential.
Only a memorial that is discussed in everyday life and accepted in rituals can be a reminder to rethink the
past for a reflection of the present situation
In this sense I wish the Shrine of the Innocents a lot of visitors.

(This text will be presented with a further theoretical introduction at the 'International Conference Europe
and South-Asia - Plural Identities, Multiple Perspectives', organised by the delegation of the European
Commisson in association with The Centre for European Studies of the Kelania University on Feb.
24th,2000. All presented papers will be published after the congress.)