What Matters: Bank of Ceylon Annual Report 2009 - Prof. Sasanka Perera

What Matters: Bank of Ceylon Annual Report 2009 - Prof

. Sasanka Perera

Though reading a variety of texts is a routine part of academic practice for any academic, reading of annual reports is certainly not a priority or even a passing thought. Personally, I consider annual reports of numerous organizations in any part of the world as a colorless, humorless, passionless genre of documentation that does not deserve the attention of a discerning reader beyond those associated with the organizations concerned. But annual reports are important indicators of what an organization has achieved in a particular year and what its future hopes and expectations might be. In an ideal world, reading annual reports should not merely be a matter of reading statistics and descriptions provided, but also of assessing the modes of presentation and creativity of presentation. Often though, as we do not live in an ideal world, annual reports are hardly creative.

In this general context, I was very surprised when some weeks ago I received a copy of Bank of Ceylon's annual report for 2009 by post through I am neither a customer nor affiliated with BoC in any way. For me, it was simply a bank where my father did all his banking, and nothing more. But I must confess that the annual report, aptly titled What Matters, completely took me by surprise. I was surprised at not only the elegance of the product but also by the sophistication of the conceptualization and presentation. Momentarily, I was not sure whether I was looking at an annual report of a bank or catalogue of an art exhibition. Without a doubt, this is the most tasteful and elegant document of this kind I have seen in a long time, and certainly the only one I have seen in this country. In a way, the genesis of this review lies in that initial surprise.

At this particular moment and in so far as my review is concerned, I will not focus on BoC' self-perception, the record of its achievements, the plans for its future and the statistics presented. My interest is to ask the following set of questions by undertaking a brief visual audit of the document: what makes it possible for a state sector bank working in a climate that generally lacks of creativity, to produce an annual report that incorporates drawings, installations, sculptures, performance art, and amalgamate these trappings in a dynamic manner to present the story that the bank wants to narrate. It appears that this approach is well captured in the explanatory line which appears in the inner cover page of the document: "the flow of local and global events make us realize that it is no longer enough for us to go with the flow. New vistas need new answers... answers that must spring from deep analysis of self and revisited fundamentals." In so far as the production of the annual report is concerned, the BoC seems to have clearly lived up to this slogan.

I take it as axiomatic that for a considerable time art has not been considered by many not simply as a means for decoration and self gratification. It is also a means to many other ends. Though no serious debate on this issue has taken place in our country in recent times, even ancient temple murals were not commissioned simply for the sake of art; they were also expected to narrate many stories that would aid in the process of Buddhist socialization as well as to create the moral community of Buddhists. It is in this intersection where 'art as art' and 'art as narrative tool' meets that we must locate this document. It shows the extent to which art can be effectively incorporated within a usually colorless document such as an annual report to bring life, movement, meaning and vitality in narrating a story. Every important position the bank wants to stress has been combined with commissioned or carefully selected artworks accompanied by a caption and a specific text and figures that narrate the overall story. For example, the installation plus performance art works captioned, 'is there another way' and 'what matters is not the load' effectively gives life and meaning to specific aspects of BoC's current corporate position - the need to be different and the intention of being efficient and doing something right. Similarly, the installation captioned 'what does matter?' consists of a what appears to be iron nails made to look like a group of people - not just any group of people but an exhausted group of people. The accompanying description refers to the end of war and the negative impact it has had on our society, and the need to move on. But it reminds us that "there is much to straighten out in the future.' Even without the description, the artwork might have narrated much of the story.

When carefully 'looking' through this document, one consistent thought continued to nag me. That is the relative inability or difficulty to review an annual report. As we know, such activity often does not take place, and a methodology to do this might have to be formulated in times to come. In this context, the only real way to understand and appreciate this document is to actually see it.

But this is not an accident. To produce something this successful at least in artistic terms, many things have to come together, particularly in the prevailing circumstances: first and foremost, the BoC had to have the vision to literally "go where no one had gone before", to use a phrase from Star Trek. It is not merely a matter of making the correct decision but also of making a new decision that I assume might not have convinced too many people in Boeir own previous public documents. Second, it was also a matter of selecting the correct team to conceptualize and operationalize something that is truly creative. So, BoC's second success was to select Smart Media to carry the idea of producing a different annual report into realization. It is very clear that they have done this impressively. Third, Smart Media was able to put together a team of thinkers and artists to make this happen. Much of the art work has been produced by students from the University of Visual and Performing Arts. If we look at the final product as a culmination of a series of correct decisions and a specific process, then it is clear that seemingly incomparable sectors could be put together to produce something creative if the correct ideas are in place and if individuals making right decisions are in correct places. In this case, the product is the result of a symbiotic relationship between a state sector bank, a private sector company specializing in producing annual reports and finally, a university focused on the invention and production of culture, widely defined.

My only reservation is the lack of individual acknowledgement of the artists in the production of this elegant report. They are acknowledged as a collective. But I believe if individual acknowledgment was given as to who produced which artworks, it would have more comprehensively added to our understanding of the process and the art itself. It would also have been an enduring recognition for the young artists as well. Perhaps this is something that BoC and Smart Media will take into account in their future endeavors. One hopes that the process of this endeavor and the final product will offer us a respite to think about the possibilities that can become realities even in the generally colorless and unimaginative circumstances of the Sri Lankan corporate world.

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