Description:

Let’s go back in time to the post-independent era in Sri Lanka and work together to craft the story of Minnette De Silva. The game speaks about the life and work of a Sri Lankan architect, Minnette De Silva, as a part of the crafts community. The game brings to light events in her life that help us understand her outlook on Architecture, with a particular focus on crafts. Not only will it reveal Minnette’s take on modern Architecture, but it will also help us see a different perspective on international modernism from a unique point of view. The game speaks about the life and work of a Sri Lankan Architect, Minnette De Silva, as a part of the craft community.

We encourage you to find six ways crafts appear in Pieris House. The Pieris House, as an event in time, mirrors many forms of crafting identity and community in post-independent Sri Lanka. We can also see that the use of crafts and arts by Minnette de Silva was inspired by the writings of the great theorist Ananda Coomarswamy and, for example, his interest in working with traditional wood construction techniques. This traditional way of working with wood requires using not only local materials but also local labour. Sensitively using craft reveals an aesthetic language that preserves the memory of the past while exploring questions related to the needs of a constantly evolving and transforming society. In Craftibly Minnette, the goal is to unravel how craft alters through the building and see that it can be a way of synthesizing the memory of the Kandyan Era. As the game unfolds, one will walk down the trail of understanding how Minnette overcomes through craft her design struggles, finding the relation between the modern and traditional approaches to developing a new and original architecture that gives us critical insights into the craft community of Minnette’s era.

In this journey, the players will learn to master the art of storytelling and co-working while understanding how Sri Lanka developed after gaining independence. We invite everyone interested in discovering how the modernist movement impacted Sri Lanka’s architecture and Ceylonese community and how Minnette De Silva implemented it without forgetting the past and tradition to play the game.