Hope is a deeply personal photographic exploration shaped by Calvin Chinthaka’s return to Sri Lanka after years of living in the United Kingdom. Born in Sri Lanka and later becoming a British citizen, Chinthaka’s journey back is both physical and emotional, revisiting a place that remains central to his identity despite distance and displacement.

Over 60 days on a motorbike, he travelled across the island, documenting the diverse social identities that define contemporary Sri Lanka. Moving between urban centres and rural landscapes, he captures everyday life across cultural, ethnic, and religious lines, revealing how communities coexist, intersect, and sometimes diverge. The work offers an intimate look at the textures of ordinary experience and the quiet complexities of belonging.

At its heart, Hope is also a reflection on the artist’s own position—situated between nations, shaped by migration, and negotiating the tension between familiarity and estrangement. The project engages with themes of social politics, multiculturalism, and subculture, questioning what it means to return to a place that is both home and memory.

Through a series of portraits and Landscapes , Hope unfolds as a visual narrative of identity and nationhood, offering a nuanced meditation on connection, division, and the evolving meaning of belonging in a globalised world.