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SURA MEDURA - Blog 3 - Love to Sri Lanka

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Startled shadow of the fruit bat swooping dowm imprinted on the Dammissara Road arrests me on the cycle home past the Buddha statue the velvet firmament dusky blue and brass gold stars rustling undergrowth where dogs sleep on the road stars poke through the canopy of breadfruit and I halt and pay attention to this sizzling magic nocturnal crispness Sri Lanka at peace now in knowing I can leave having seen you under this sky showing me in layered ways your response to a full life the full moon topped up heart pulled back a curtain to the rhythm of this land ancient ancient ancient people working together interlocking I can feel the bass of the sea and the rain that woke up the tree frogs ------ I have been back in Scotland for a month now. The Scottish and Sri Lankan environment might as well exist on two different parallel planes, both are alive but in apparently opposite ways, moods and tones… The final showing at th...
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SURA MEDURA - Projecton Experiments

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Live drawing on ipad, pico projector direct on to palm and dried leafs @ Sura Medura - March 2019
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SURA MEDURA - Beep beep

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https://soundcloud.com/wardrop/bus-impro Impro jam with samples from Sri Lankan bus horns and radio
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SURA MEDURA - Blog 2

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IN TO THE NIGHT I have always wanted to go a rainforest (a boyhood dream)..so Sinharaja national park was high on my list of Sri Lankan adventures.  If I am going to talk about it in my work I need to understand what it is to stand in one and bear witness. Most of the forests n Scotland have been degraded by human hand ( though there are some notable exceptions!) and this is a place that is under threat from the gradual encroachment of rice paddies, tea plantations and unregulated tourist development. The ecosystem goes right back to Gondwana land - the huge ancient supercontinent. I managed to convince my fellow artists to join me. We were not disappointed. We combined it with a trip to Udawalawa national park. We all left buzzing having seen every kind of plant and animal imaginable - tree crab, owl, viper, elephant, toucan, crocodile, mongoose,  sambhur dear, kangaroo lizard, peacocks, macaque & grey langar monkey, fruit bat, butterfly, 3 kind of giant...
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SURA MEDURA - Hill country

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POEM   http://www.suramedura.com/
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SURA MEDURA - Road signs

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  I have become pretty obsessed about the road side signs on lamp posts advertising college courses. The colours and designs (often screen printed) - luminous, bright and very cool. I am keen on letting them influence visual designs in abstraction and spin them out in to animation and print.   Och I just love them. They are gorgeous.  http://www.suramedura.com/
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SURA MEDURA - Kandy

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Experimental 3d design inspired by Kandy and sound  https://vimeo.com/320206010 Kandy is situated right in the centre of the mountainous district of Sri Lanka . It is an ancient home for world Buddhism and a centuries old sit of pilgrimage. I went on Sri Lankan National Day - February 4th with great crowds filtering and pushing through the temple. I found the whole place very effecting having never been part of such a mass religious ceremony.  The smell of purple lotus flowers held aloft.  People buzzing with the hope of a momentary blessing bestowed from seeing the relic of the Buddha's tooth in its sacred chamber. There is a deep sense of worship that emanates from the place and wraps you up in it. In my search for a place to meditate in Sri Lanka I couldn't work out where people stop to praise. In my initial visits to temples I was surprised to find there is not a a meditation hall. Commonly, there is a stu...
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