jagath weerasinghe, welcome to hardtalk. i'm happy to be here.itting here in your home, which is also your studio, i wonder how far you've been influenced as both an artist and an archaeologist by sri lanka's past? i'm totally influenced by that. i'm totally, yes. everything i do has something to do with the past of sri lanka and the idea of the past, that we keep performing in the present. yeah. but it's notjust sri lanka's past, it's a particularly bloody past that you choose to focus on. why? that is what i call the history of the present. you know, we have a long history coming from, like, fifth century bc, and, you know, there's this great history of sri lanka or south asia. but the 20th century history is i call the history of the present, which is...defines myself and my art and my thinking. lalith manage, who is co—director of an arts collective which you helped co—found, says, "you cannot talk about weerasinghe's work "without talking about the history of the land." but can you only create your best art through that terrible lived experi

jagath weerasinghe, thank you very much indeed for coming on hardtalk. my pleasure. hello, there. for most of us, the working week is going to end on a dry note, but cloud amounts will vary. i'm hopeful that most places will get to see at least a little bit of sunshine. it will be largely dry, but i can't completely rule out just the odd shower. where we're starting friday morning with clear skies, a cold start across scotland and northern ireland, a touch of frost, some patchy fog which could also affect parts of northern england and wales. further south and east, a bit more in the way of cloud and one or two morning showers, many of which will fade by the afternoon. and then for england and wales, it's a mix of patchy cloud and sunny spells. some sunshine too for northern ireland and scotland. but for northwest scotland, eventually northern parts of northern ireland, we will see more cloud fringing in ahead of this frontal system — the breeze picking up in the far north as well. light winds elsewhere, highs of six to nine degrees. and then through friday night, thi

ok, thank you, and let's go to maheesha weerasinghe.a whole has been absent for a long time. _ what are the immediate steps that have been taken - that would be successful even in the long run? i dushni, i mean, two questions there — one is about sort of emergency welfare for people who are in a desperate situation right now. i mean, people are sort of choosing about whether they should eat, whether their children should eat, which child should go to school, which child shouldn't go to school. i mean, you know, it really is a dire situation, and what can be done in the long run? well, i think — there has not been a disruption to sri lanka's welfare schemes related to schoolchildren. there is a free midday meal, schooling is accessible to all at no cost. the issue is that we've had significant high food inflation in this country, running at over 90%. so whatever midday meals were being provided by the government, you are not able to provide that same meal now, because the cost has almost doubled. and, unfortunately, given the fact that w