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Menika Van Der Poorten

Menika Van Der Poorten

Menika van der Poorten was born in London and grew up between London and Colombo. She settled in Sri Lanka as an adult and here she has built a career in photography for the past twenty-five years working in the fields of documentary photography, arts administration, curating and teaching. Menika studied photography at the John Cass School of Art (now the London Metropolitan University) (1987-89) and at the University of Westminster (1995-97). Menika van der Poorten’s photographic practice is informed by her experience of living between different cultures and communities. Identity, place and the ‘marking of presence’ is a recurring theme in her work. Her work focuses upon communities that experience displacement and are in a ‘state of flux’. Her photographs are inspired by her own family history, and mixed-race descendants of European settlers who came to Sri Lanka during the British colonial times. Her aim is to contextualise the ‘presence and present’ of the Eurasian community through their stories. The research has involved photography, interviews and collecting material on the Eurasian community (particularly those that had a connection with the tea and rubber plantation sector).

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