Visuals of cultural integration; christmas postage stamps of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Postage stamps primarily issued by governments as receipts of postal prepayment, are important sources of global material and visual culture. Other than its utilitarian purpose, postage stamps represent the issuing countries, commemorate important occasions, individuals and places, serve as a medium of advertising, propaganda and an important archival entity. Produced by people of a specific community for purposeful communication, a postage stamp is inherent of symbolic visual content, therefore can be viewed as an artefact of the culture that it was produced in. With regard to the density of cultural information they hold, postage stamps are recognized as a tangible movable cultural heritage item by UNESCO. When looking at philatelic practices of Sri Lanka, Christmas marks a notable commemoration. Christmas is celebrated religiously by over 2 billion Christians in Sri Lanka, as well as culturally by many non-Christians. Complementing the National Christmas celebrations, Sri Lankan government issues a Christmas postage stamp, annually. Since its inauguration in 1980, there have been a total of 36 issues of Christmas stamps, making it one of the longest continuing sequels of commemorative stamps in Sri Lanka. In this study 5 issues of Christmas postage stamps representing five decades were analysed to learn how the information intrinsic to culture is inscribed within them. At the end of the study it was found that Christmas postage stamps of Sri Lanka are planned as carriers of material as well as conceptual elements of Christian culture, while offering miniature visuals of cultural integration in the island to the audiences.