Rhythm as collective practice

Colomboscope was founded in 2013 and has since become an integral part of Colombo's cultural landscape. Originally a festival focusing on literature and the city's history, Colomboscope has developed into a stage for interdisciplinary and sustainable artistic processes, with regional and international creatives and researchers taking part. At the ninth edition of the festival, under the title Rhythm Alliances, over 50 artists, collectives, musicians, choreographers, filmmakers, and cultural organizers will present 35 projects developed especially for Colomboscope. They present different rhythmic characteristics, such as turbulent, insistent, or periodic, giving the festival less the character of an exhibition and more that of a lively, cross-genre experiment that focuses on memory and renewal in the face of a global system dominated by consumption and war.

Rhythmic drumming, which is deeply rooted in many Asian and African cultures, is fundamental to this year's Colomboscope. It can symbolize freedom or liberation, or be associated with divine powers or the warding off of spirits. In many regions of Sri Lanka, healing rituals, ceremonies, processions, and exorcisms are performed with the primary use of drums. The FOLD Media Collective, a non-profit organization of freelance cultural workers that has been instrumental in the implementation of Colomboscope since 2019, developed the dynamic, radiant wave motif as the logo for the ninth edition of the festival: a minimalist, expressive symbol of released energy and collectivity.

Rhythm Alliances was curated by Hajra Haider Karrar together with artistic director Natasha Ginwala and the festival team. »[T]he ninth edition is an invocation of rhythmic transmissions. [...] Here, the voice, musicianship and aesthetics of the handmade converge in motion, crafting a language that liberates even as it remembers. Within these resonant gatherings, rhythm asserts its agency, a pulse that speaks, insists, and transforms«, says the Berlin- and Karachi-based curator about the concept.

Artistic director Ginwala adds: »This festival edition foregrounds rhythm as an essential character of cultural life, social cohesion, and diverse civic histories and sonic pathways. Rhythm as a field of mapping dissent, healing, and renewal – all life begins and ends with rhythm – all living beings carry distinct rhythms, circadian patterns communication grooves and flow thereby into a larger universal story.«