I come to Reimagine Peacebuilding through a long journey of working at the intersections of culture, memory, and social inclusion in post-war Sri Lanka. Over the past two decades, my work has focused on how arts-based and participatory methodologies can open spaces for dialogue, particularly in contexts marked by conflict, silence, and exclusion.

My engagement with Reimagine began as a search for a community that moves beyond institutional approaches to peacebuilding and instead centers practice, experimentation, and collective reflection. As someone who has worked within international development structures, I have increasingly felt the need to rethink how we design and sustain peacebuilding processes, making them more locally grounded, ethically responsive, and creatively driven.

Within the Reimagine community, I hope to contribute experiences from my work on oral history, museum practice, and storytelling, particularly projects that engage with gender, memory, and contested heritage. These include facilitating workshops across Sri Lanka and internationally, curating narrative-based exhibitions, and working with communities to document lived experiences of conflict and coexistence.

My work has evolved across multiple fields, development, heritage, research, and the arts, but has always been grounded in a deep interest in how people make meaning of their pasts and presents. I began my career in media and communication as a copywriter and scriptwriter, where I developed an early sensitivity to narrative and voice.

This later expanded into academic and professional work in sociology, Asian studies, and museum anthropology, and eventually into a long engagement with peacebuilding in Sri Lanka. For over a decade, I worked with the Culture and Conflict Programme at GIZ, where I explored how arts and culture could contribute to reconciliation and social cohesion in post-war contexts.

Over time, I became increasingly drawn to the stories that remain unheard or unrecorded—particularly those of women, marginalized communities, and individuals navigating the everyday realities of conflict and recovery. This led me toward oral history, participatory research, and curatorial practice, where storytelling becomes both method and outcome.

As an independent researcher and practitioner, I have worked on projects that bring together memory, identity, and place—from digital archives and exhibitions to documentary storytelling and community workshops. Much of my work engages with gender, belonging, and contested heritage, and seeks to create spaces where people can reflect on their experiences in ways that are both critical and empathetic.

At its core, my journey has been about finding ways to connect research with lived experience, and to use creative practice as a means of engaging with complex social realities. Increasingly, I am interested in how we can move beyond formal narratives of peacebuilding to embrace more fluid, relational, and imaginative approaches.