History
Sri Lankans have lived through 26 years of a brutal civil war. During this period, over 100,000 people were killed, including prominent leaders and scholars from all different backgrounds and political parties. The war ended in 2009 but in February 2018 communal riots broke out in the city of Kandy, followed by more incidents of hate and violence. There was a fear of history repeating itself.

Idea:
On 21st August, the “International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism, Ceylon Today, a reputed newspaper in Sri Lanka, wanted to send out a message of unity and remind Sri Lankans of the heavy price of conflict.

To urge people to maintain peace and unity, we let some of Sri Lanka’s assassinated leaders do the talking. We went through and analyzed hundreds of archived speeches and voice recordings. Then, using over a thousand audio fragments, we reconstructed their words to create “The Unity Speech,” a single speech reminding Sri Lankans to come together.