Hanusha Somasunderam’s work confronts the plight of the tea estate workers in Sri Lanka and the struggle that has been faced by their communities in the hill country for over 100 years. Somasunderam’s first-hand experience of the environment is directly translated through objects typically used for tea making. She works on the objects as sculptural material intricately illustrating stories through imagery of places, people and objects. The contradiction of the contribution made by these tea-pluckers to the country’s economy only to suffer hardship in return is the essence of the artist’s work. Her distinctive series using strainers and stained tea bags juxtapose the strain of the people in her community and the stains marked on their lives.
