Sri Lanka's Prominent Performance Artist Janani Cooray Trolled By Lankan Facebook Users Who Think She's Mentally Handicapped

November 28, 2020

Sri Lankan performance artist Janani Cooray is being trolled intensely by Sri Lankan Facebook users who believe she is mentally handicapped.

Oblivious to the existence of an art called ‘Performance Art’, Sri Lankan Facebook users believe Cooray needs medical assistance. Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be live, through documentation, spontaneously or written, presented to a public in a Fine Arts context

These reactions came after she publicized some of her recent performances on Facebook. As Sri Lanka has seen only a handful of performance artists, her work came as an alien experience to many Sri Lankans.

Cooray is a Sri Lankan contemporary performance artist, art educator and painter. She is regarded as one of the leading performance artists in Sri Lanka. She has held exhibitions around the world, including Bangalore, Colombo and London.

A highlight of her career was an incident this year when some sections of India misinterpreted her image of wearing Osariya along with whole body being covered with barbed wires in a 2015 street performance claiming that the woman showed her frustration after the Hathras gang rape and murder by dressing up herself with barbed wires.