Pulse of place

Extending across The Condensery’s main gallery and historic Bomb Shelter, Pulse of place is an immersive and multisensory installation exploring domestic ritual and the cultural histories of Sri Lankan women. Through this work, Kuweni Dias Mendis explores how relationships between body, place, memory, ancestors and more-than-human worlds can be cultivated through embodied artistic practice. 

The installation unfolds across three interconnected chambers, each inspired by women’s knowledge of cooking, scent making, birthing and sensory life. These forms of knowledge have often been passed down outside formal institutions – through bodies, homes, communities, relationships and everyday rituals. Pulse of place asks what becomes possible when practices historically understood as domestic, sensory or reproductive are recognised as complex systems of ritual and cultural knowledge.