In 2016, I conceptualized an installation titled ‘The Colombo Project,’  for Cinnamon Colomboscope, an annual contemporary and multi-disciplinary arts festival in Sri Lanka. Using both photography and film,  the installation tried to capture a vision of the city which holds within itself a potential for ethnic and religious harmony through its built environment and technological advancement. ‘The Colombo Project’ was invited to be exhibited at Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa (2019) and at the Mittal South Asia Institute at Harvard University (2022). The installation was based on the neighbourhood around the Kirulapone Canal, an area that houses ethnically and socioeconomically diverse communities of Colombo. Having worked and studied in the area, my own relationship with the neighbourhood spans two decades. The idea of the installation was to enable visitors to understand how our built and virtual environments impacted our interactions with one another. Our interactions are key to formulating perceptions of each other, and as Colombo expands both vertically and horizontally, embracing the aesthetics and technology of a ‘modern’ and ‘global’ city, what could these …