Homagama Mass Rally – A Special Place for the Social Media Team

Date: 7 February 2018
Location: Homagama, Sri Lanka
Presided over by: Mahinda Rajapaksa
Stage Design: Isura Wickramarachchi
Special Feature: Dedicated area for social media activists

The mass rally held in Homagama on 7 February 2018, during the 2018 Local Government Election period, remains a particularly memorable event in my political and media-related activities.

I was responsible for the stage design for the rally, contributing to the visual presentation of the main stage and campaign environment. The photographs preserve both the preparations earlier in the day and the atmosphere of the large public gathering later that evening.

What made this event especially significant to me was being able to secure a separate designated area for our social media members. At a time when platforms such as Facebook were becoming increasingly important to political communication, I felt that those who worked through social media also deserved an appropriate space from which to cover and communicate the event. The clearly marked “facebook” seating area seen in the photographs records that initiative.

For me, therefore, the Homagama rally was more than another election campaign event. It combined two areas in which I was actively involved at the time: creative design and social-media coordination. Most importantly, it gave me an opportunity to do something meaningful for the members of our social media community who had been contributing their time and effort to the campaign.