The GHL seminar series will begin in 2026 with a seminar on “Provenance and Personhood: Unfolding the Story of the Kandy Ring“. In this session, we are pleased to welcome Ganga Rajinee Dissanayaka, who will examine the Kandy Ring through provenance, craftsmanship, personal memory, and its ecological and material sustainability dimensions. Tracing the gold ring’s journey from traditional Sri Lankan techniques to colonial collections, reveals layered histories, human-environment interactions, and evolving heritage values.
Dr Ganga Rajinee Dissanayaka is an ethnographer and art historian specializing in material culture, museum studies, and provenance research. She studies Sri Lankan art, heritage, and repatriation within global decolonization debates. The Discussant, Dr Rapti Siriwardane-de Zoysa, is an anthropologist exploring oceanic cultural ecologies in the Asia-Pacific. Her work focuses on intertidal worlds, epistemic justice and multispecies relations.