THE FINESSE

The Finesse (2022/23) is a large-scale video installation by Christopher Kulendran Thomas in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann. “The work examines some of the lost legacies of the Tamil liberation movement in Kulendran Thomas’s family homeland. The immersive film installation melts pop culture into political science and combines archive footage with AI-generated avatars. The Finesse traces the Tamil liberation movement’s attempt to imagine a cooperative economy based on renewable energy, communal ownership and computational coordination. Blurring the boundaries between historical research and a sci-fi proposition for an alternate reality, it looks at how the art, architecture and technology that were lost with the defeat of the de facto state of Eelam could today inform radically different, and constantly shifting, ideas of the future. With parts of the work continually algorithmically generated anew, the film is never quite the same twice.” (KW Berlin press text)

The installation is built around five LED walls mounted behind glass panels that function as mirrors when the LEDs are off — reflecting the space, the audience, and the ghillie suit sculptures positioned throughout the room. At precisely synchronised moments, the LEDs activate, dissolving the mirror surface into video; simultaneously, two moving lights above the audience bench illuminate the sculptures and the viewers themselves, making them part of the image. A large-scale projection fills the entire back wall behind the audience, reflected in the glass panels and layered over the darker passages of the LED content — creating a shifting, compound environment in which reflection, projection, and live illumination are in constant tension.

Role: Video Installation, Lighting Design & Technical Direction

Exhibitions:

ICA London 2022 – »Christopher Kulendran Thomas: Another World«

KW Berlin 2022 – »Christopher Kulendran Thomas: Another World«

Kunsthalle Zürich 2023 – »Christopher Kulendran Thomas: For Real«

K21 Düsseldorf 2025 – »Grund und Boden«

Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney 2025 – »In Data Dreams«

New Museum, New York 2026 – »New Humans: Memories of the Future«