Katha-i Series
Tamil: கதை (Kathai)
Sinhala: කතා (Katha)
Exploring our Sri Lankan Identity, Memory & Belonging through conversation, cuisine and the arts.
Katha-i is derived from two words that share the same root across Tamil and Sinhala. In Tamil, கதை (kathai) [pronounced kah-thai] means story, narrative and in everyday Sri Lankan Tamil, the act of conversation itself. In Sinhala, කතා (katha) [pronounced kath-ahh] carries the same warmth, stories, talk, the words we share with one another.
Katha-i, is two words threaded together. This series holds many voices that have rarely shared a room. Stories told. Silences broken. A conversation that is only just beginning.
The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden by Nirmalavasan Susiman
Disrupting Silences & Reclaiming Identity!
Yes Aunty, I like living in Australia by Lashini Piyatunga
For Sri Lankans who grew up in the shadow of war, economic collapse, ethnic divides and faith tensions, identity has never been simple. It carries the weight of survival and the memory of belonging and exclusion, of wounds that never fully close.
For the diaspora, another duality emerges. The tension of being caught between worlds. Between the culture of home and the culture of elsewhere. Between memory and forgetting. Between inherited histories and the compulsion to create new ones.
The Conversation Series: Fragments of Us, creates space for shared dialogue and deep listening, allowing unspoken stories, memories and wounds to be explored together, in community and with care. It centres Sri Lankan voices and lived experience, building understanding across ethnic, religious, geographical and gendered divides shaped by shared and often unspoken wounds.
Conversation Series 1.0 was held on Sunday 21 June 2026 in collaboration with Ondru and the Off the Kerb Gallery. The stories that emerged that day, Tamil, Sinhala, Burgher and ally, reminded us how much remains unsaid and how much is still waiting to be heard.
The series will continue as an ongoing programme. Each session will draw in new voices and new perspectives. Tamil, Sinhala, Malayaga Tamil, Burgher, Muslim, Vedda and other communities. Young and old. Those who lived the war and those who inherited its silences.
Some silences have lasted long enough. This series exists to break them, together, and build connection one conversation at a time.
Katha-i Conversation Series
Conversation Series 1.0: Fragments of Us,
Sunday, 21 June 2026, 2-3pm, Off the Kerb Gallery, Collingwood, MELBOURNE This conversation brings together four voices from across the Sri Lankan experience and its edges: Tamil, Sinhala, Burgher and global ally. Each carries a different relationship to identity, belonging and the long aftermath of conflict. Together they will speak about what it means to grow up inside a war, to be told you are not Sri Lankan enough, to come of age in a diaspora shaped by division, and to choose solidarity from the outside in. This is the beginning of a conversation.
Art: Ciccus quadrangularis by Vigneswaran Thangeswaran
Katha-i Colombo: Weaving Us Together - Across the Divide
Friday, 24 July 2026, 6:30-8:30pm, Barefoot Garden Café, Colombo 3, SRI LANKATwo years. Two Peace Rides. More than 2,000km from south to north in Sri Lanka. Over 30 community workshops facilitated with Tamil, Sinhala, Malayaga Tamil, Muslim, Vedda, and Burgher communities. Building trust, listening, co-designing and developing long-term initiatives shaped by the people who live them.
This is where the road meets the room.
Join us at Barefoot Garden Café on 24 July 2026: partners, media, artists, diplomats, volunteers, businesses and community voices, across communities. Leave knowing who Nūl is, what we have built, and why you should be part of what comes next.
Sunday, 15 November 2026, 3-5pm, Lankan Tucker, Carlton, MELBOURNEKatha-i Series 3.0
More info coming soon.
Art: Unspoken by Dinesh Perera
Katha-i Series 2.0
More info coming soon.
Art: The Cloud by Peter Ponnaiyah
Sunday, 20 September 2026, 3-5pm, Lankan Tucker, Carlton, MELBOURNE