Kamala Vasuki (Jeyasankar), born in 1966, in the North and living in the East of Sri Lanka, both the districts affected by the 3 decades of internal armed conflicts. Her own art practices started as a reflection of a young woman living in war. Her acquaintance with the theatre groups and women’s rights movements rooted her works conceptually on feminisms and expand her expressions through different mediums including theatre and songs. Her individual artworks comprise of paintings on the power of women and nature, cartoons to question the dual stands and the creation of divides and hatred based on gender, religion, ethnicity, caste and class and installations on common experiences of conflicts that connects women beyond their identities. Also she initiated collective art practices with women to raise collective voices and to express their experiences and memories. She believes in holding community art exhibitions and encourage the people to view and engage in discussions. She has been an integral part of women’s activist spaces for peace, non-violence and justice. She has mentored almost two generations of visual artists and others who are interested in all forms of artistic and literary work for social change and peace. She founded and sustaining many groups along with her friends including ‘Artists for non-violent living’, ‘Third eye’, a group of activists engaged in preserving local knowledge and skill ‘Padinikal’ an all women cultural group that was affiliated to the Suriya women’s Development Centre and Samathai the only all women parai drumming group in the island – the drum that is traditionally relegated to be played only by oppressed caste men and Samathai reclaims the traditional percussion art from a caste and gender perspective. She holds Master’s degree in Human Rights and Democratization from University of Sydney.

Participant in: August 2023 Fellowship: The Arts as a Tool for Peacebuilding