Chamindika Wanduragala's vivid imagination streams with ideas, images and creative ways to connect artists and audiences of color
Kelly Westhoff
Chamindika Wanduragala is petite. The precise angles of her face are in sharp contrast with the unbound intensity of her curly hair. Her speech is rapid, steady and expressive. She is bubbling with unique ideas, creative interests and a passion for the arts. And she has the energy to turn her brainstorms into reality.
Wanduragala's schedule reflects the sheer number of synaptic fires happening in her brain. Friday nights she hosts a dance party at the Lounge in downtown Minneapolis; she is the deejay behind the beats. "I spin everything," she said. "Soul, funk, hip hop, Latin, Bollywood and Arab dance music. I love to watch people have fun. I like to interact with the audience and sneak stuff in that you don't know. It's so cool getting paid to spin."
Wanduragala's eclectic dance mix has helped her land freelance jobs at weddings, private parties and other events across the Twin Cities. But her main creative outlet is her art. This fall she had to park her car on the street; her garage was filled with stage backdrops she had created for a local play.
Another of Wanduragala's brainstorms-turned-reality is Diaspora Flow, a nonprofit arts organization she co-founded in 2001 to create opportunities for artists of color to present their work to audiences of color. "We wanted to create a space where artists can perform for their own community, where they can feel comfortable performing to a diverse audience," Wanduragala said.
Many artists of color find themselves performing to a mostly white audience and that can influence their art, she explained. A black artist, for example, may censor herself, holding back certain emotions or experiences if she feels the potential audience won't be able to relate.
The making of an artist
Wanduragala was born in Sri Lanka, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, and her family arrived in the United States when she was six years old. Since then, she has traveled to Sri Lanka a few times. Once, a gallery in Colombo, the capital city, hosted a show of her art, but Wanduragala said the experience was disappointing. She had hoped that there her art would finally connect with her roots: Wanduragala is Sinhala, the majority population of Sri Lanka. Instead she felt the Colombo gallery only attracted "a certain class" to the showing; a certain class that was not of the majority.
Wanduragala's bold, colorful art is surely not of the majority. She points to her high school love of mythology as the inspiration for her work. "I like the idea of characters that symbolize something else," she explained. "Except I used to think the only mythology was Greek. But then I discovered that everybody has mythology!"
A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Wanduragala's portfolio displays drawings of mythical creatures: gnomes with oversized feet contemplate unhatched eggs and troll-like figures dance on bird-like feet. Humans transcend earthbound realities by breathing flowers and hugging glowing unborn children germinating inside them. And throughout her drawings, color saturates.
"I listen to music when I draw," Wanduragala said. "I start drawing and things just come out. The characters are all mine. I am creating my own mythology."
Page after page of Wanduragala's portfolio are filled with photographs of her drawings, so many, in fact, that one wonders where she keeps them all. Wanduragala laughed at the question. "On the wall, on the floor, under my bed," she answered. But she hopes that one day many of her pieces will come out from under her bed and find a home on someone else's wall.
First, her work must find its way before potential buyers. In order to expand her audience, Wanduragala has designed a line of greeting cards and posters featuring her images. "I'm trying to figure out a way to keep my work affordable," she said. "For a lot of people that do buy my work, it's the first time they've ever owned art."
"A lot of people I know don't go to galleries or museums. I want to do shows where you don't just look at the art on a wall, where art is not so static." Wanduragala insisted, "I want my art to be interactive."
That is where Diaspora Flow comes in.
Going against the flow
Diaspora Flow events are cabaret style. In one night a choreographer, an actor, a spoken word artist, a poet, a filmmaker and a musician may all take the stage. Visual artists display their work in lobby areas and entrances. Most of the artists are local to the Twin Cities; each is a member of a minority population. There is often food and time before the show for the audience to mingle, view art, eat and get into the spirit of the night.
"The theater is expensive. Or some people think, "I'm not gonna get it,'" Wanduragala explains. "But people come to one of our shows and all of a sudden art is accessible."
Diaspora Flow events have been held at many locations around the Twin Cities, including The Loft, the Penumbra Theater, Hamline University and Macalester College. Tickets run $5-15 and t-shirts are on sale at performances. The tradeoff for affordability, however, is that ticket and t-shirt sales don't generate enough money to do all the things Wanduragala would like.
"We've always believed in paying artists," she explained. "Lots of communities enlist the help of local artists for area events, but expect artists to perform for free or for little pay. You have to support the artist if you want quality art," she stressed. "We want quality art. We want artists to be paid."
Like many small arts organizations, Wanduragala and her co-founder have tapped their grant writing skills. Diaspora Flow received a grant from the Women's Foundation of Minnesota; in the works are grant applications to the McKnight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.
Future flow
Wanduragala is certainly busy‹busy looking to the future. She recently turned 30. "I love 30," she smiled. "I love it. I feel like the older I get, the happier I get. Especially as a woman‹we're taught to be insecure. But now I'm more confident. I'm so much more comfortable with who I am."
In her 30s, Wanduragala hopes to refocus her energy on her own art. "I really want to focus on making a living from my art. [Turning 30] made me realize that my art is something I can keep doing my whole life." She laughed, "I can't be hauling around cases of CDs when I'm 60."
"And I want to see how far we can go with Diaspora Flow," she added. "I've spent a lot of my own money and I promised myself I wouldn't do that anymore. I hope I can turn it into a salaried position."
That means growing the organization, however, and letting other people become involved in the administration. That's something she acknowledged isn't easy for her, and not only because the office is in her bedroom.
"I have to learn to let go a little," she admitted. "You know, I get scared that if I'm not involved people will take it in a different direction. So we have to find people with a similar vision."
"I really want Diaspora Flow to be about artists finding their audience," she stressed. "And I want to get to the point that we can commission art, where we can pay an artist to create something just for us."
