This past January, the artist and raconteur Firi Rahman gave a series of informal talks in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s Galle Face Green, a seaside park flanked by the colonial-era Galle Face Hotel and the futuristic megaproject Port City Colombo. During these events, he stood in front of Taste Karaththé, 2019, a street seller’s cart he had converted into a mobile phenakistoscope display featuring animations of sharks, coral reefs, and lighthouses. Speaking in Sinhala, Tamil, English, and Malay, Rahman drew a diverse crowd. He told stories of people from his neighboring community (called Kompannavidiya,