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The French Spring Festival 2021
Sri Lanka is known for its cultural diversity, and has been for thousands of years. This is due in large part to its location on the global map, forming a hub of sorts for travellers, both modern and ancient. Traders visiting our shores have been enchanted by our island, setting up their own communities; from the Arab and Chinese traders and merchants of old to the Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonial settlers in more recent centuries. This cultural diversity and the resulting cultural exchange that comes from it is part of what makes our culture and heritage so unique.
One such event that celebrates cultural diversity and exchange is the French Spring Festival, a month-long event that celebrates links between Sri Lanka and France through a multi-disciplinary festival fostering artistic links between France, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. Organised jointly by the Embassy of France in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, the network of Alliance Française in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, with the support of our partners, Lanka Institute of Fashion Technology, SLYCANTrust, Publicis Groupe Sri Lanka, Café Français, ARTRA Magazine, SUEZ France, ATR Aircraft, Mod’Art International, AGC Innovate, Ceylon Theatres, Cafe Kumbuk, Emerging Media, and One Galle Face, the French Spring Festival presents a wide series of events each year showcasing the innovative and modern initiatives carried by French, Sri Lankan, and Maldivian artists and intellectuals.
Embassy of France in Sri Lanka and the Maldives Cultural Attaché Aurélia Collard shared with Brunch that the French Spring Festival 2021 was first created in 2012 to showcase both French and Sri Lankan artists. “Usually, the French Spring Festival is a range of cultural events that are organised physically: movie screenings, concerts, dance performances, literary encounters, street art performances, and so on,” Collard explained. “We work with close partners that are key to the festival’s success, such as Café Français and Park Street Mews.”
In its ninth year, the French Spring Festival 2021 will take place from 18 June to 18 July and will explore the theme “The Island”, showcasing a range of different insularities that vary by their size, position, culture, and conceptual understanding, as well as the challenges that affect them.
Through history, islands have been subjected to a myriad of collective imaginaries and mythologies. They are mysterious and inaccessible, and something of a siren for adventurers. From Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, real and imaginary islands have always been part of our geographical and literary understanding. In the words of 20th-Century Swiss traveller, writer, picture editor, and photographer Nicolas Bouvier, “what we bring to an island is subject to metamorphosis”, and the French Spring Festival will look at what islanders are bringing to their island today.
Adapting to the pandemic, Collard shared that this year, the French Spring Festival will take place largely virtually. “We prepared for two scenarios throughout the year: a physical and online format, and the latter became evident as the date approached. However, we are still hoping to organise certain physical events once the situation is better,” she said, adding:
“This year, we also decided to innovate and have a core theme guiding the festival: The Island. This allowed us to explore the different characteristics that constitute islands, both French islands (places like La Reunion, Polynesia, Martinique, and so on) and islands such as Sri Lanka and the Maldives. We wanted to showcase their different artistic talents, but also question their conceptual understanding – their insularity or their relationship with the ocean, for instance.”
Some of the key performances and creative events of the French Spring Festival include two online concerts from Sri Lanka musician Hania Luthufi that will be broadcast on 19 June and 11 July, a virtual open studio by Maldivian artist Eagan Badeeu on 23 June, and an exclusive concert by the Polynesian duo Vaiteani, which will be streamed on 27 June.
Some of the other events at the French Spring Festival will also include an online photography contest, “My Island” (18 June-18 July), a focus conference on human mobility facing climate change (21 June), a slam poetry workshop (2 July), a discussion with Prof. Eric Meyer and Prof. Sasanka Perera on Sri Lankan insularity (5 July), ModArt’s “Exposition de Mode” annual student fashion exhibition (8 July), and a musical evening with the Band Sankhara (11 July).
The French Spring Festival takes place at a time when Sri Lanka is on high alert in the midst of a third wave of Covid-19 infections. However, Collard shared that, it is important to think about cultural exchange even in times like this, saying: “At a time when the sanitary context is encouraging us to rethink the ways we support artists, highlighting how creation continues to take place amidst adversity seemed essential to us. It is also an opportunity to explore new cultural formats, such as virtual open studios.”
The French Spring Festival will take place from 18 June to 18 July 2021 and is open to all audiences virtually. For more information and to register for specific events, please visit the French Spring Festival’s website: https://www.frenchspringfestival.com/.
