My Beautiful Picture Book

The influx of tourism capital in its post-war years has seen the terraforming of Sri Lanka’s natural, socio-political, and cultural landscapes. Among its many neo-Orientalist implications is the marginalization of traditional professions, transforming them into performative roles. Examples include stilt fishermen who now fish primarily to serve the tourist gaze. And the persistent invisibility of structural violence and the exoticization of indentured labor in the tea industry, a colonial remnant that continues to thrive. More recently foreign entrepreneurs, posing as tourists, have exploited Sri Lanka’s economy by acquiring long-term property leases, thereby pricing out locals and fostering new forms of structural racism and exclusivity. Utilizing images sourced from popular Instagram hashtags related to Sri Lanka, this project examines how tourist photography commodifies and simplifies the rich complexities of the country’s landscapes, people, and culture into exotic backdrops for the consumption of privileged global travelers.

ARTMargins, Volume 13, Issue 3, pp. 109-125.