Shared Sanctities

Since times immemorial, people have experienced the divine spiritual through art and architecture. In Shared Sanctities, museuologist and writer Hasini Haputhanthri explores some of the historically sacred spaces in Sri Lanka together with photographer and film maker Sujeewa de Silva, producing five visual narratives on religious confluence.

Hasini and Sujeewa situate Sri Lanka as an island of encounters, where people, ideas and traditions from all over the world arrived via sail boats and ships and then took root, adapted and grew into new forms. By exploring heritage sites of Polonnaruwa, Nalanda, Kandy, Galle and Colombo they document how temples and kovils, churches and mosques have all borrowed, shared and evolved through time, making the island, as Marco Polo says 'undoubtedly the finest island of its size in the world'.