Lojithan Ram Arra Kuļamum, Kottiyum, Āmpalum

PRSFG is pleased to present Lojithan Ram’s debut solo exhibition, Arra Kulamum, Kottiyum, ĀAmpalum , a deeply personal and poetic exploration of memory, loss, and resilience. Rooted in Ram’s Sri Lankan Tamil heritage and experiences growing up in Batticaloa, the exhibition weaves personal and community histories into an evocative visual language. The exhibition takes its title from a verse by the ancient Tamil poetess Avvaiyar, who writes of a pond dried by the sun. While birds flee the empty water, some aquatic plants Kotti, ĀAmpal, and Neythal persist, their roots deep in the cracked earth. For Ramanath an, this image becomes a powerful metaphor for endurance. Lojithan Ram explores ideas of nostalgia and memory primarily through lens based mediums and alternative printing processes. The artist is a graduate of Ramanathan Academy of Fine Arts, University of Jaffna and the co founder of We Are From Here, a collective project which highlights a deeply interconnected community in Slave Island whose home base is increasingly threatened by gentrification.

Ram’s work has been exhibited in group presentation locally and internationally including Ceylon Literary and Arts Festival (2025), Chennai Photo Biennale (2023), Dhaka Art Summit (2023), 5th Kochi Muziris Biennale (2022) and Colomboscope (2024). Ram is a grantee of the prestigious Prince Claus Seed Fund Award (2023) and A4A Production Fund (2022).

In Ram’s cyanotypes, ghostly apparitions of landscapes and family photographs adorned with blooming lotuses and resonating with the sounds of ritual hymns offer a sense of emotional and spiritual refuge. Yet, beneath their reflective stillness lies a deep undercurrent of disconnection and sorrowful remembrance.

Layered onto the surface of the work are verses from the Vaikuntha Ammanai, a mourning chant recited for thirty one days after a death in the Tamil speaking communities of Batticaloa. This hymn weaves personal experiences of grief and transition into mythological narratives from the Mahabharata, revealing a shared sense of loss and transcendence through the divine.

In the series Poigai, sculptures manifest the artist’s imagined sanctuary: a tranquil lotus pond, where rest is bountiful. In these works, familiar household objects appear partially submerged and entangled among lotus blooms. A bicycle with a stack of paper perched on its back pedestal pays homage to the artist’s father.

These objects, drawn from daily life, are transformed into vessels that hold personal significance to the artist.

Arra Kulamum, Kottiyum, Ampalum explores the delicate interplay of presence and absence.

How families, places, and the notion of belonging remain elusive. Ram does not seek resolution to this tenuous hold, but dwells instead in the in between where home is not a fixed point but a tender longing, revisited again and again. Arra Kulamum, Kottiyum, Ampalum will be on view at PR SFG, 41 Horton Place, Colombo 07 from 23.05.2025 to 23.06.2025, from 10 a.m.- 6 p.m.