The first part of the three-part exhibition with events, Tonight No Poetry Will Serve, is inspired by Adrienne Rich’s poem, as a cancer awareness generator and fundraiser for the Cancerfund-Galle dedicated to the Oncology and the Palliative Care Unit at T. H Karapitiya,  Galle, Sri Lanka.

Cancer, according to the 2018 WHO key statistics, accounted for 9.6 million deaths worldwide. This figure is projected to increase by 45% in the next decade. The more sobering aspect of these numeric truths is that 70% of the global cancer deaths occurred in low and middle-income countries such as Sri Lanka. This trend is likely to continue and will be further exacerbated by environmental degradation and climate change.

By way of a call to action, a group of Sri Lankan and international artists join us in solidarity with the vision that cancer prevention requires global effort with innovative and pragmatic action. The names of participating artists in the inaugural exhibition are:
Ali Kazim, Anoli Perera, Anwar Saeed, Ayesha Jatoi, Barbara Sansoni, Chandragupta Thenuwara, Dominic Sansoni, Duk Ju L. Kim, Elizabeth Porter, Hamra Abbas, Hugo Tillman, Jeanne Thwaites, Karunasiri Wijesinghe, Mahbub Shah, Menika van der Poorten, Muhanned Cader, Nelun Harasgama, Rupaneetha Pakkiyarajah, SP Pushpakanthan, Stephen Champion, Tim Kurtz, T. Shanaathanan, and Vinoja Tharmalingham.

For the cause, the artists have donated original artwork(s) to raise money for the work of Cancerfund-Galle. We are grateful for their trust in our ideas and unstinted support. Without them our work would be impossible.