10 Questions with Godwin Constantine

Godwin Constantine was born in Kandy and went to school in the Central province and later in the North of Sri Lanka when his family was displaced by the racial riots. He studied art from a young age under two artists and at the Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts. In 1999, he carried out his first exhibition. His first performance art piece, a milestone work in 20th-century art in Sri Lanka that focused on a political concern, also unfolded during this exhibition.

Godwin initiated the Theertha Performance Platform in 2015 and held annual workshops characterized by interdisciplinary discussions in Sri Lanka. These workshops were aimed at introducing new art practices in Sri Lanka. The Performance Platform was a public event that saw the participation of many international visiting artists.

Although Godwin is predominantly a performance artist, he also draws and paints, and he has produced several video performance art pieces as well.

Having studied sociology, philosophy, and literature, Godwin’s art practice is connected to multiple varied disciplines, including medicine, neurobiology, sociology, poetry, and visual art.

Godwin now serves as the chairman of the Theertha International Artists’ Collective, where he is a founding member.

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ARTIST STATEMENT

“As an artist, my body is the primary medium of my artwork. The presence of the body creates an intimate appeal to the spectator. Our interaction with society is the prime focus of my art, may it be conflict or any other interaction that forms the essence of my work. We live in a world with other living beings and other matters, and we have to relate to all of this in our day-to-day lives. As humans, we have the responsibility to maintain a balance in this world with respect to all animate and inanimate objects and to all cultures, whether we understand them or not. It is an important mission for artists to be mindful of our existence and that of the whole planet.” - Godwin Constantine

INTERVIEW

First of all, introduce yourself to our readers. When and how did you start getting involved with art? 

I am Godwin Roger Constantine, a Sri Lankan artist. From a young age, I was interested in drawing and painting. My father was a photographer and had a keen interest in the arts. As a child, I remember seeing my father developing his black-and-white photographs in the dark room. It was fascinating to see how images gradually develop and become photographs. In school, I was fortunate to have very dedicated art teachers who made us draw still lifes almost every week. Later, whenever I had the opportunity, I would visit famous artists in Sri Lanka and learn from them.  

You work primarily with performance. Why did you choose performance in the first place, and what does it represent for you?

I started with drawing and painting, which I continue to do. At a certain point, I realized that painting and drawing were not adequate to convey what I wanted to express. In my social context, ethnic conflict, identity issues, and violence were integral parts of day-to-day life. This needed to be expressed in a concrete way. Painting has its limitations in this regard; in painting, the expression of these ideas often borders propaganda art. I did not feel very comfortable expressing these issues through my paintings. As I was involved in drama and theatre activities, the idea of expression through performance art came to me naturally.
To me, performance art provides an opportunity to have a very intimate and personal interaction with my audience. It builds a kind of very private interconnection with the viewer despite being a public performance. During a performance, you see the viewer’s immediate reaction, which modulates your performance in rather unexpected and interesting ways. In a way, we create an intimate dialogue with the viewer during a performance.

What, for you, is the most enjoyable part of your art?

The most enjoyable part of my art is the completion of a performance. At the end of a performance, you have already connected with the viewers; this gives an opportunity to engage with viewers at a different level to exchange ideas. After the performance, viewers come up with new interpretations and ideas of the performance, some of which may not have occurred to us thus far. This is a form of performance review, and here, you have an opportunity to revisit your performance with the viewers. This may lead to new ideas for new work or to work more and refine the same performance from a different angle. This is a very important aspect for a performance artist.

Where do you find inspiration for your work, and what is your creative process like? 

Inspiration for my work comes from my socio-political context. We cannot escape our socio-political context. Artists are and need to be very sensitive to their social-cultural-political environment. To me, pure spirituality and the subconscious do not provide substance for contemporary art practice. In this rapidly advancing world, what remains very personal and real is the relationship we have with our social and physical environment. How we react and perceive our environment depends on our socio-cultural-political context.
Even if we think that we are secluded or detached from society, in my view, this is also part of the reaction to our lived experience in our own context. Whichever way we regard our work, it ultimately boils down to an expression of lived experience.
When I am inspired by an incident or an idea, it works in my mind for some time. Initially, it starts as a rough sketch. This sketch is mostly in my mind; sometimes, I make a drawing, and I gradually build that rough sketch by adding details and some areas that I deliberately leave unclear. This process gives rise to the final idea for the artwork. Depending on the nature of the idea, it evolves into a painting, performance, or installation work. An elaborate idea may need other art forms, such as immersive theatre or short film, to achieve the maximum expressive potential. Sometimes, it may require collaboration and fusion of various art forms. As an artist, I feel I should not confine myself to one mode of expression. Rather, the inspiration and the idea should guide me in selecting the mode of presentation to maximize expressivity. For me, the performativity of inspiration is the driving force in the creation of an artwork. When an artist becomes commercially successful, it becomes a hindrance to creativity, and commercial success tends to cause stagnation.

What are the main themes you wish to investigate and communicate to the audience?

The main idea I am working on now is power and subordination. How power manifests in a society, in a country, and in relationships is important to understand human behavior. Power and subordination cannot be avoided in any system. To some extent, it is a functional necessity. At the root of this lies identity.
Power is not necessarily the power of an individual; it can be the power of a racial or ethnic group over 'the Other', the power of the majority, or many other forms. This power can act in a particular way to undermine the importance of 'the other' in many facets of life, whether culturally, intellectually, in business ventures, or in other aspects.
Various elements are used to establish this hierarchy and dominance. Ultimately, what resides at the top is determined by who holds the power of governance, which is ensured by the possession of military power. Power is bestowed on a group or an individual and is legitimized through the system. A state or government cannot exist without military power. In essence, power relies on the ability to use violence against dissent or opposition by a group that uses the legal system it created.
The other aspect of power is expressed as cultural hegemony, where the cultural symbols and practices of the minority are overshadowed by those of the majority. For both these forms of dominance, I see camouflage as a symbol capable of expressing the essence of power. On one side, camouflage directly reflects military power; on the other end, camouflage can symbolize masking the subordinate cultural symbols and practices of the powerful.

How has your art evolved over the years? 

I have seen a definite evolution in my art practice over the years. I started with pure representation in paintings and drawings. Initially, incidences were an important inspiration for me in terms of the incidence and the represented incidence. Now, I tend to look at incidence as representations of global issues, and I see the generalizability of personal experiences. That is partly why I choose performance art and installation over painting in my art practice.

What do you hope that the public takes away from your work?

I do not believe in giving messages or ideas through my art. I believe in creating a dialogue with viewers through my artwork, one that is not necessarily verbal. It's a kind of discourse that is created in the mind of the viewer and its extensions. Viewing an artwork is not an end; if at all, it's the beginning of a process that should be able to influence viewers' ideas, attitudes, courses of action, beliefs, and practices that construct subjects' consciousness and their response to their environment. In short, I believe art should initiate a transformative process in the viewer. It cannot be a complete process, but it should at least be a starting point.

What advice would you give to an emerging artist? 

For up-and-coming artists, continuous learning is important. An important aspect of learning is learning from established artists and from progressive artists who are highly creative. We can also learn from writers, dramatists, dancers, and all types of creative people. By talking to and interacting with mature artists, one can learn more than what can be learned from books. Though I learned about drawing and painting from an early age, it was the interaction with a senior established artist that made me realize that one does not become an artist simply by learning to draw and paint. Learning to draw and paint is only the starting point. True art is well beyond this. Gaining insight and inspiration extends beyond the knowledge we get from textbooks and even through a formal curriculum.
It is also important to see as many original works as possible, and if one does not have access to original works, reproductions can be an alternative. This should go hand in hand with reading about the works of other artists and art theory.
Another aspect that sharpens our creative process is discussion. The creative process is enriched by discussing our work with other artists and others with a creative and critical mind.

What are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future in terms of new projects? 

I do not like to consider my work as a project. The word 'project' carries a connotation of compulsion, a necessity to work to complete a task within a timeframe. Instead, I regard my works of the given period as products of inspiration from within that period. At the moment, I am working on the idea of identity and camouflage.
Identity, as I see it, is an important idea in performance art. From a theoretical perspective, identity is performed; it's a script that one performs. The identity script pre-exists the performer. On the other hand, any performance (apart from performance art) can assume meaning or importance through the identity of the performer. In performance art, meaning exists outside the identity of the performer. At present, I am creating performances and a theoretical framework to explore more about performance as an ideology and performance art as a practice.
In my recent performances, I use camouflage to explore the role of camouflage as a symbol of power and a means to mask the identity of subordinates in the socio-political context.

Finally, do you have any upcoming shows or collaborations you are looking forward to?

I agreed to participate in two performance events, one in India in June and the other at the International Multimedia Art Festival in Serbia in September. I very much look forward to these events as opportunities to meet old friends and create new collaborations. In my overseas engagements, I carry out a five-element performance like a ritual, where I reference air, fire, sky, earth, and water, which connect all humanity wherever we are.
The event I always look forward to is our Theertha Performance Platform, which will take place early next year. This is an international performance event that we regularly organize in Sri Lanka, to which we invite 15 to 20 international artists. We had the last event in December 2022.