Kälam – A Space for Cultural Encounters

Elephants normally travel over 30 km per day and seed up to 3500 new trees a day. For the Oluvil Pallakkadu elephants many things have changed and their changed behavior will change our landscape. Tharmapalan Tilaxan has observed this open garbage dump amidst the jungles of the Eastern Province for many months and documented the hazards this poses to the local elephant population.

Celebrating it's first year of existence, Kälam - a space for cultural encounters - opened its doors on the 18. February 2021 to invited members of the creative community in Jaffna for the opening of the exhibtion "One & Many" by poet and artist P. Ahilan and a series of contemporary performances.

Textures of Dance – an outdoor exhibition of photographs by Tharmapalan Tilaxan featuring dancers Rasiah Thanaraja, Thevarasa Ketheeswaran, Sangarapillai Priyasaravanan, Rasaraththinam Thansekumar, Ketharani Indrarasa & Bavana Sivayakan opened under the neem trees of the Kälam garden.

After its opening on 18 February 2020, Kälam aimed to soon host small exhibitions, performances and artist gatherings across all genres. With the outbreak of the global Covid19 pandemic, the following island wide curfew and the vision of creating a space for people to meet, exchange and share ideas had to be changed. Until it will be possible to safely return to this vision Kälam will create cultural encounters that everyone can participate in from the safety at home.