"According to Sri Lankan idiom, honeycomb is representative of the vagina and honey of menstrual blood. In this instance, these substances are used to simultaneously irritate and soothe the region over which the ovaries are located in the female body. Self-inflicted pain is performed to symbolically manufacture sympathy in response to diaspora and the diminished reproductive rights in post-civil war Sri Lanka—the my country of origin."
Dola Duka (2016)
Other works by Dilohana Lekamge
Dilohana Lekamge
Kili (Ritual Impurity) (2016)
Facing the camera a female performer claws at her lower torso, washes herself, and finally covers herself in a light fabric.
Dilohana Lekamge
A well-told lie (2024)
Scenes of a vacant house are overlaid with a narrative that speaks of a misplaced copy of Sri Lankan-Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje’s fictionalised memoir, Running in the Family (1982).
Dilohana Lekamge
A softer limestone (2023)
A softer limestone centres on Ram Setu, or Adam’s Bridge, a limestone shoal crossing the Palk Strait between Sri Lanka and India. Ram Setu is a unique geological feature and a site of foundational significance to these nations' different religious groups.