Queering a Garden Beyond the Order of Nature
Images 1 and 3 copyright and courtesy of the Lunuganga Trust
Starting a blog about feminist praxis in the arts was one task, yet finding the ideal topic to start with was another. At this moment of posting, it makes sense that I start with my reflections about The Order of Nature, a recent programme done in conjunction with the To Lunguganga programming series by the wonderful designer Thilini Perera of the Geoffrey Bawa Trust. Thilini and I have been having extended conversations about ‘queering’ as a concept with feminist roots. We have also been thinking about doing the work as opposed to just talking about it, and that conversations could go beyond the politics of representation/visibility [1].
Coming under the purview of the Geoffrey Bawa Trust, Lunuganga is the longest and perhaps even unfinished project by the infamous architect. He began working on it in 1948, the year of Sri Lanka’s independence from the British. It was also his first project––he bought the 19-acre land in the rural south of Sri Lanka upon returning after qualifying as a lawyer in England. Desiring to turn the space into his home and sanctuary of rest, he turned to learning architecture. Recent programming by the Lunuganga Trust has ensured that more members of the public engage with the property––with an abstract curatorial process akin to excavation [2].
I will co-opt Thilini’s words to best describe her curatorial project which plays with Lunuganga as a site of enquiry on its 75th anniversary:
“The Order of Nature is a curatorial project exploring intersection of queerness, architecture, and landscape design, with a specific focus on Lunuganga, the garden crafted by architect Geoffrey Bawa in Sri Lanka.”
Aside from being the simplest and most straightforward introduction to a curatorial project I have read in a long time (this is a compliment!), Thilini’s responses to the garden from multiple angles of queer theory stood out. I cannot say that many Sri Lankans have not thought about it because it is public information that Bawa was queer Yet, to rethink and reimagine his private residence from that angle with the public in mind is laudable. Enacted in 1883 under British law, Sections 365 and 365A of the Penal Code of Sri Lanka, criminalising “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” and “gross indecency.” As a (reluctant yet curious) lawyer I have been interested in definitions of legal jargon forever. Conversations with lawyer friends often end with “but those provisions are dormant,” “we have tried and failed,” or “but it’s not as bad as it seems.” Despite studying law for almost seven years, many of us are still learning about the impact of the laws we practise.
In 2018, Sri Lankan playwright and director Arun Welandawe-Prematillake developed a play titled The One Who Loves You So with a group of friends, which included Thilini. While writing about the play and talking to Arun about it, I researched these legal provisions in detail. They were declared dormant by the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in 2017. However, even today, many LGBTQIA+ persons live in fear because they are prone to arrest by the police, especially in public places. Relying on the provisions being ‘dormant’ due to the supposedly open-minded nature of our society and the legal system requires a different coming out of an unbelievably bureaucratic nature which accepts the existence of the provisions.
In the absence of a legal definition for “the order of nature” and current conversations about queerness in Sri Lanka, The Order of Nature imagines a queer way of living as it pertains to Bawa and his palpable relationship with Lunuganga. The Order of Nature reminds me of Heather Love’s introduction to “feeling backward” as part of one’s queer identity. In Feeling Backward: The Politics of Queer Identity (2007) Love says,
“Queerness is…both abject and exalted, a ‘mixture of delicious and freak’ [3]. This contradiction is lived out on the level of individual subjectivity; homosexuality is experienced as a stigmatizing mark as well as a form of romantic exceptionalism. It also appears at the structural level in the gap between mass-mediated images of attractive, well-to-do gays and lesbians and the reality of ongoing violence and inequality.”
Thilini points this out in many ways: What is ‘delicious’ in Lunuganga? Perhaps the statue of a naked man near what is referred to as the ‘Roman pavilion’? What is ‘freak’? Perhaps the half-constructed hideout with no name that overlooks the forestry? What are the feelings of [queer] backwardness that would have attracted Bawa to Lunuganga? More importantly, what is his privilege as a mainstream architect who designed the parliament of Sri Lanka while being queer and against ‘the order of nature’ in his private life? How did he acquire a 19-acre plot of land in the middle of nowhere? How could he let go of his legal practice and start an architectural practice because he liked this piece of land [4]? Why is it heralded as his ‘sanctuary’ and source of inspiration, while for many queer people in Sri Lanka there still are none, as the legislation has not yet been repealed in their favour?
The installation in the reading room of the lower gallery includes natural materials and artificial objects from the garden that would have attracted Bawa to Lunuganga. These range from salt, Ceylon blue olives, flora, and architectural elements that thrive in the garden. Various maps and sketches of the garden speculate on spaces that could be read as queer in Bawa’s time and today. Upon invitation, artists have responded to the garden as a source of inspiration: Shenuka Corea’s mahogany folding screen with acrylic paint thinks of Lunuganga as a maze meant for hiding and refuge. Her zine How do you uncover the queerness of a space? is almost a step-by-step manual to figuring out Lunuganga the garden as mythical, mysterious, and evolutionary, much like one’s identity. During her tours of the garden, Thilini diligently gave concrete examples of spaces that Bawa may have thought of in relation to his queer identity––as solitary, hidden, and sometimes extravagant and vast like the plot of land itself.
The Order of Nature also feels like curatorial activism as discussed by Maura Reilly in her book Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating (2017) [5]. While curating for geographical and otherwise spaces, there are windows where one’s voice and opinions peek out. Acknowledging and working with that power is something I am sure many of us struggle with, as it evolves as a profession. Thilini’s approach in this project feels like a ‘soft’ form of curatorial activism in that it is tender and calm in her metaphorical excavation process in Bawa’s garden. [6]
1 It also helped that Thilini was open to me writing about it on my personal blog even though two art publications have thus far rejected my pitches about it.
2 My first visit to Lunuganga was in 2019. I remember wanting to lounge indoors looking at curator Shayari de Silva’s excavation of Bawa’s decorative objects and book collection indoors, while my mother and sister wanted to roam in the garden. We had been to his hotels Kandalama, Bentota Beach, and Jetwing Lagoon, and had regularly roamed the corridors of the St. Bridget’s Convent Montessori in Colombo, where many of our cousins, nieces, and nephews studied. These were public buildings, while Lunuganga is still treated with the care and knowledge about it being ‘private’. Its daily operations as a hotel are managed by Teadrop Hotels, yet it simply has 10 rooms atop a hill of seclusion.
3 As quoted by Love from the novel Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers.
4 I understand the irony of this statement as it pertains to my relationship with legal practice.
5 Read a shorter version of this concept here.
6 There is an obvious question I ask myself: why do I write about a space that belongs to a man who is such a large personality in Sri Lanka? It is difficult to find feminist answers to patriarchal and heteronormative problems if we do not think about initiatives that start untangling such problems, is all I will say.
