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There's a preoccupation with memory and the operation of memory and a rather rapacious interest in history.

Everyone has ways of trying to find a way to memorise our past. There's something very poetic about that.

For a long time, I've been interested in cultural memory and historical erasure.

I never heard of an old man forgetting where he had buried his money! Old people remember what interests them: the dates fixed for their lawsuits, and the names of their debtors and creditors.

But we cannot rely on memorials and museums alone. We can tell ourselves we will never forget and we likely won't. But we need to make sure that we teach history to those who never had the opportunity to remember in the first place.

Recalling a memory is not like playing a tape recorder. It's a creative process.

There are at least two retrospectives of my work each year in some country.

I would prefer to be forgotten, then rediscovered in a different age.

Whether we live in Sri Lanka or Malaysia or India, the U.K. or the U.S., we face similar issues of understanding, remembering the past that has made us and seeing the future we want.

You can certainly get an idea of the value of memory if your memories can carry you out into the world no matter how utterly dissatisfied you may be with the present and wish you could get away from it.