In Conversation: Pala Pothupitiye and Dr. Tushara Bindu Gude
Saturday, November 14, 2026
Noon–1 pm
Included with General Admission
Join us for midday conversation on Saturday, November 14, to celebrate the refreshed Dr. Sukumar Nagendran Wing for the Art of Asia and the inaugural installation of the Nagendran Gallery for the Art of Sri Lanka and South Asia, featuring a solo exhibition by celebrated Sri Lankan contemporary artist Pala Pothupitiye. At noon, hear from Pothupitiye and guest curator Dr. Tushara Bindu Gude, as they discuss the artist's practice.
About Pala Pothupitiye
Pala Pothupitiye (b. 1972, Sri Lanka) is an internationally recognized contemporary visual artist whose interdisciplinary practice explores tradition, identity, politics, and power. Blending formal fine arts training with a familial lineage of traditional Sri Lankan craftsmanship, his work reconfigures cultural motifs to challenge caste-based practices and colonial frameworks. He actively incorporates specialized techniques like traditional metalwork and regional sewing into his contemporary pieces. Pothupitiye is particularly acclaimed for his conceptually layered map series, which reclaims geographical narratives and questions historical authority by cutting, drawing over, and re-stitching official cartography. His politically charged work has been exhibited at major global institutions, including the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan, MACBA in Barcelona Spain, QAGOMA in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England. In 2010, he won the First Prize Jury Award at the Sovereign Asian Art Prize. A key builder of Sri Lanka's contemporary art infrastructure, Pothupitiye is the Founder and Chairman of Millennium Art Contemporary (MiAC), driving vital curatorial experimentation. He is also a co-founder and Director of the Theertha International Artists Collective, and co-founder of the Mullegama Art Community, fostering engagement.
About Dr. Tushara Bindu Gude
Tushara Bindu Gude is an art historian based in Charleston, South Carolina, where she is Curator at the Foundation for Spirituality and the Arts. From 2006 through 2022, she served as Associate Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Previously, she served for six years as Assistant Curator of South Asian Art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Bindu received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her major exhibitions at LACMA include, in 2018-19, The Jeweled Isle: Art of Sri Lanka, the first comprehensive exhibition on Sri Lanka to be organized in the United States. In 2010–11, she curated India’s Fabled City: The Art of Courtly Lucknow, the first significant exhibition to focus on a Mughal successor kingdom. She was co-curator of the exhibition Las Huellas de Buda (Traces of the Buddha) (Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 2018,) the first pan-Asian Buddhist exhibition to be held in Mexico City. Bindu’s most recent exhibitions include Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Arts Across Asia (LACMA, 2025–26) and Indigo: Variations in Blue (Aiken-Rhett House Museum, Charleston, 2026). In addition to various scholarly publications, she has contributed essays to several exhibition catalogs, most recently for Silver and Ceremony from Southern Asia, 1830–1930 (Birmingham Museum of Art, 2025).