Oral Histories: Dominic Sansoni

Dominic Sansoni knew Geoffrey Bawa from a very early age, as his mother, artist and textile designer Barbara Sansoni, was a close friend and collaborator of Geoffrey’s. Dominic spends much of his time adding to and cataloguing his extensive archive of work, spanning the last 30 years from Sri Lanka, India, Mauritius, the Maldives, Nepal, Yemen and others Dominic discusses—often in amusing detail—his collaboration with Swiss architect Christoph Bon on the publication ‘Lunuganga’: a book which documents and explores Bawa's garden at Bentota, which was first released in 1990. It was Christoph Bon, along with Joe Chamberlain and Geoffrey Powell, who were responsible for the design of the Barbican Arts Centre in London. Dominic also talks about the joy of revisiting Lunuganga over the past 3 decades, and on his recent installation for “The Gift”, as part of the Bawa 100 programme, a celebration of Geoffrey’s centennial birth anniversary. The Oral Histories Project is an ongoing endeavour that will continue after the centenary year celebrations, and the Trust encourages submissions of potential historians and anecdotes to [email protected].