At a time when it is dawning on our nation, slowly, in indigestible nuggets, that oppression and human rights violations can be found very readily by those prepared to peer under the Axminsters of just one or two centuries of recent British History, what am I to make of the ‘half–cast’ me? Half oppressor, half oppressed? Post, post–colonial? Brown at first sight, my reality is that of the ‘other’, the outsider.

My work reflects on time lived in Sri Lanka and England. I’ve been dredging up distant memories and interweaving my more recent past into them. I’ve been unearthing intergenerational interests and learning about my family’s role in social movements, cotton mills, Sri Lankan independence, Buddhism, Unitarianism and, surprisingly, their common thread as influential advocates of temperance.