Eelam

Eelam by Saumeya Suseenthiran is a telling of the Sri Lankan Civil War, told through the Tamil perspective in words and images.

“Through an essay that tells the history of the war through my mother’s story coupled with my father’s photographs of the country in 2005, this work serves to educate and acknowledge the marginalized Tamilian experience and honor the struggle for survival at the hands of oppressive majority groups, through a perspective rarely shared. This artifact is meant to serve as a love letter to my community and to my parents, who struggled and sacrificed everything to get to where they are now, losing loved ones and neighbors along the way, all because of the language they spoke. I hope this amalgamation of thoughts breathes a bit of life back into a concept largely forgotten amid constant destruction and genocide, Eelam, a free state where Tamilians can live in peace and without being subject to discrimination.”

This project was made possible with support from the Frank-Ratchye Further Fund Microgrant #2024-003. See the interior of the full book here.