Sri Lankan textile‑led fashion designer Ruwanthi Gajadeera presented an original cyanotype artwork to His Majesty King Charles III at a garden party marking the 125th anniversary of the Victoria League for Commonwealth Friendship.
The work, titled එක මවකගෙ දරුවෝ (Eka Mawakage Daruwo, Children of One Mother), was unveiled at the League’s Bayswater house in west London. Inspired by Sri Lanka’s national anthem, the piece reflects shared belonging across ethnic and religious differences. Extending this sentiment outward, Gajadeera incorporated the national flowers of all 56 Commonwealth nations, arranged around a crown motif holding the endangered High Brown Fritillary butterfly.
Each flower was hand‑drawn, the paper sensitised manually, and the print exposed using sunlight alone. The cyanotype’s distinctive blue emerges through a photochemical reaction rather than applied dye or pigment, producing no toxic waste, a discipline consistent with Gajadeera’s sustainable design practice.
The event gathered League trustees, Commonwealth delegates, High Commissioners including Nimal Senadheera, Sri Lanka’s envoy to the UK, and resident students. King Charles, patron of the League, also unveiled a plaque and spoke with students.
League chairman John Steel KC told the gathering: “Your leadership of the Commonwealth we consider to be of incredible importance. So do all the nations of the Commonwealth.”
The presentation precedes the King’s upcoming visit to Antigua and Barbuda in November for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
About the Artist
Ruwanthi Gajadeera is building her studio practice in London through InnovationRCA, the Royal College of Art’s venture accelerator, after completing an MA in Fashion at the RCA. She also works as a facilitator at Humboldt‑Universität zu Berlin through Circle U., the European university alliance, on art‑science research creation.
An internationally recognised talent in sustainable design, she was the first South Asian to win the Taiwan Fashion Design Award (2021) and Runner‑Up at the Redress Design Award (2023), the world’s largest sustainable fashion competition. Her practice combines handloom weaving rooted in Sri Lankan tradition, natural dyeing, and cyanotype, exploring how material processes can carry place, history, and responsibility. (Newswire)
