‘One Hundred Thousand Small Tales’

Autoethnographic encounters with visual art and memory

Bibliographic Data

ID19222115
AuthorsSaambavi Sivaji (0009-0003-4749-460X, Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, corresponding author)
Year2026
Pages1-19
Publication date2026-05-09
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueContinuum (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1030-4312 • E-ISSN: 1469-3666
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10304312.2026.2672359
OpenAlexW7160716769
LanguageEN
References cited20

Through autoethnographic encounters with selected artworks from the exhibition One Hundred Thousand Small Tales (OHTST) at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) Sri Lanka, and grounded in the author’s lived experiences, this paper presents how art activates inherited memories and reveals the forms of erasure and absence. It argues that these artworks operate as affective repositories that resist official narratives by making visible the intimate and fragmented histories often excluded from public discourse. The analysis is framed as a conversation between the spectator (author) and the artworks, where each piece becomes an active participant in revisiting and reframing memories of the Tamil community. In so doing, it also highlights how art can create spaces where personal memories intersect and offer alternative ways of understanding the emotional and political afterlives of war

Autoethnography · Ethnography · Feature (linguistics) · Narrative · Photography · Visual culture · Art Education and Development · Participatory Visual Research Methods · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism