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Presenting life on the move
| Written by Jonathan Allison | |
| Friday, 20 March 2009 | |
| French photograher Jean-Francois Perigois finds a ‘system' within the dizzying chaos of Phnom Penh's city streets in his new exhibition at Equinox  Photo by: JEAN-FRANCOIS PERIGOIS One of the photographs showcased at the "Part of the Process" exhibition. |
"Transport is part of the process of change, but it is also part of the process of life. For those who own the transport, the wheel is so important. It is like the wheel of life," he said.
More than 35 interpretations of the crucial role that the varied forms of transport play in the life of Phnom Penh are documented in Perigois's latest exhibition "Part of The Process", which opens tonight at Equinox.
Perigois, a self-taught photographer, started his career in Paris but left the country to travel after he found it difficult to make a living through pursuing his passion.
Having done the tourist route through Southeast Asia, Perigois was drawn back to Cambodia again and again.
Having had numerous exhibitions in Cambodia at venues including Raffles Le Royal Hotel and Restaurant Le Liban, Perigois is well known locally for his portraits of people and capturing what he refers to as "the instant of life".
"Part of the Process" represents a departure from the artist's usual style.
"[At first], I thought about a collection of photos of the Asian minorities but [then I thought], no, I'm in Cambodia, the photos should be from Cambodia as well."
He then realised that he wanted to create something different from previous exhibitions. Perigois then noticed an often overlooked, if ever present, aspect of life in Cambodia - transport.
"It looks chaotic, an everyday obstacle for many, but there is a kind of system. It is somehow organised, and miraculously there are very few accidents."
The variety of different modes of transport struck a chord with him.
It occurred to Perigois that transport is not only the lifeblood of the country, as it is in any country, but it is also the lifeblood of the people who own it and use it.
"For many people, their transport is their life, part of the wheel of life. Take that away from them and they have nothing," he said.
A dizzying pace
But Cambodia is changing. There are fewer cyclos and more Lexises, more people on the roads, more produce to move.
"You can go to any of the big markets and see people, all day, moving goods on their family transport, just trying to make enough money for them and their families to survive, all vying for space on the over-crowded roads with new, expensive cars."
It's this idea of "social distortion" that Perigois finds fascinating.
"The changes are becoming more and more apparent - lots of new buildings appearing and many old buildings disappearing - but still there will be people making a living with their precious transport."
This ideal can be seen in many of his telling images of people going about their daily, unchanged lives in the thick of the dizzying pace of development - a part of the daily process of life.
Unlike in his previous work, Perigois has manipulated the colour in his images, the subject being in colour and the background in black and white. It is an interesting device, in that it accentuates the subject, but this is not Perigois's primary goal.
"The transport is moving. That is the instant that I want to capture. The colour keeps it in the present, whereas the black and white is the past. It's already happened."
Perigois hopes that his exhibition will help people to open their minds and look carefully at different ways of life
"I'm happy for people to get a connection with my images. I hope that people can look at the streets with more interest and compassion."
"Part of the Process" opens today at 7pm at Equinox and runs through May 1.
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Khmer boys show off
| Written by ERIN GLEESON Sa Sa Gallery's 'Art Rebels' forge new creative paths | |
| Thursday, 19 March 2009 | |
| Young, hip and dedicated, the eight artists behind the collective have embraced an ensemble approach to bringing non-traditional perspectives to the masses  Photo by: ERIN GLEESON Sa Sa Gallery co-founders say they want to teach up-and-coming artists to see their environment in a new way. |
Among many other approaches to the topic, I gave Chheng Pong a slideshow on my computer of artworks by more than a dozen contemporary Cambodian artists whose practices and themes are wide-ranging, from the oldest and now deceased self-taught painter-of-the-everyday Svay Ken, to a young artist from the Reyum Art School making large paper sculptures of mythical figures.
Chheng Pong was surprised to see the vitality and development, which deviated from the Royal University of Fine Art's beaux-arts approach of preserving idealised forms and passing the style on to future generations. He, like the other ministers, and like myself, contemplated the collective unawareness of these artists and their practices, and more broadly, why contemporary visual artists receive nearly no support from the Ministry of Culture.
An ensemble tradition
Along with other thoughtful formulas, Chheng Pong mentioned that because contemporary artists most often work individually, they are seen to communicate individual expression, which is contrary to the nature of the historical artisan practice: "The spirit of Khmer culture is an ensemble. It is not an individualistic culture. We see the whole. The individual worker is not part of the cultural participation unless working with the masses. Mass is considered the highest way of working."
WE HAVE A CONSISTENT PLACE NOW, LIKE A HOME. THAT STABILITY ALLOWS US TO BE MORE CREATIVE TOGETHER.
The five young artists and founders of Cambodia's first artist-run gallery Sa Sa feel the same, and they are determined to encourage their generation to better understand that individualistic expression is for the masses, too.
Vandy Rattana, photographer and current Sa Sa Gallery leader (a position that will rotate annually), was recently at the internationally praised Drik Photography Festival in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with the On Photography Cambodia project. There, he encountered an active community of Bangladeshi artists and cultural workers engaged with an energetic and supportive Bangladeshi public. He wanted to bring this sense of engagement to Cambodia, a sentiment echoed by many other Cambodian artists thriving from opportunities to travel and exchange with other Asian art communities who have wider reception in their cultures.
Photographer and Sa Sa co-founder Lim Sokchan Lina believes he must engage with students to promote the gallery and artists' practices at Norton University, where he is currently a student. He believes this gesture will allow young Cambodians to gain new perspectives through art. "Non-traditional art is a new thing for them because they don't know about other galleries in Phnom Penh or outside Cambodia," Lim Sokchan Lina said. "The students know their memories, but they don't know photography. Through photography exhibitions at Sa Sa, we will show them the environment they encounter in a new way."
Sa Sa takes its name from the first syllables in the artist collective's full name - Stiev Selepak, or "Art Rebels". Founded in 2007, the collective's purpose is to "help each other achieve art projects by sharing knowledge and resources".
An accidental beginning
For the past two years, Sa Sa's eight members met informally in different spaces to discuss projects or invite speakers to share experiences. They collaborate on various projects based on their strengths or availability. Recently, three members designed the set for a new Cambodian play, Breaking the Silence.
After two years, why a gallery? "It was an accident," said Vandy Rattana. "I was eating at Bai Tong restaurant on street 360 and the co-owner (Community Legal Education Center's Ou Virak) walked up to me and asked if I could hang my photographs on the wall. By the end of the conversation, we decided to involve the Stiev Selepak group not only in the restaurant exhibitions but also in a small wing of the building that we call the Main Gallery."
The way forward
It made sense to Vandy Rattana that the way forward was to take on leadership roles in other areas of the field beyond making art - a healthy development in any emerging art scene.
The Sa Sa space will be both a commercial gallery and a meeting place, or, what co-founder Khvay Samnang calls a home. "We have a consistent place now, like a home. That stability allows us to be more creative together. It's motivating."
To begin with, Stiev Selepak members will jointly curate a balance between contemporary and traditional art exhibitions from Cambodians. The wall space throughout the two-level restaurant, which will act as a semi-permanent exhibition, and the separate Main Gallery will rotate exhibitions every two or three months. Co-founder Kong Vollak, who participated in a curatorial training program in 2008, would like to give opportunities to students from the Royal University of Fine Arts, where three Sa Sa members are alumni. In the future, they hope to host artists they have met throughout the region.
Although all founders have assisted with organising and installing many exhibitions in Cambodia, co-founder Heng Ravuth used a Khmer proverb about frogs venturing from their small pond to convey the challenge and excitement that comes with new responsibilities. They are thankful for friends who are students of management and accounting who can help with the business aspect of running a gallery.
With the Main Gallery measuring a mere 20 square metres, Sa Sa Gallery is poised to show the expanding Cambodian art community and the deflating economy that small is beautiful.
"INTRO", Sa Sa Gallery's inaugural exhibition, opens this Saturday from 6pm to 10pm at No 7, Street 360, Boeung Keng Kang, Phnom Penh.
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Hun Sen is indeed a thug and he is tolerant to Thai troops aggression: Confused CPP MP Cheam Yeap?
Reaction to the qualification of Hun Sen as "a thug"
Monday, March 23, 2009
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
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KI-Media note: CPP MP Cheam Yeap seems to be confused in his understanding of this issue, Kasit Piromya did call Hun Sen a thug, but he did it before he became Thailand’s Foreign Affairs minister. Mr. Cheam Yeap must have forgotten that Hun Sen even shook hands with Kasit during the latter’s visit to Cambodia. Should Cheam Yeap understand the issue better, he should have asked for Kasit Piromya to retract this statement.
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Cambodia: Rice politics
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
By Chhunny Chhean
Global Voices Online
Rice is more than a staple of the Cambodian diet. It also implicates land rights, trade and international relations.
A post on The Mirror reveals the frustration of Cambodians, including Cheam Yeap, a Cambodian People's Party official, over land leases to neighboring Vietnam. From the Mirror, citing Cheat Khmer, Vol.1, #40, 18.3.2009:
Thousands of hectares of citizen’s land lying along the Yuon [Vietnamese] border of An Giang Province, bordering Svay Rieng and Prey Veng, are being leased to Yuon companies by Khmer authorities along the Yuon border to grow agro-industry crops. The Phnom Penh Post published an article on 26 February 2009, quoting the Svay Rieng governor, Mr. Cheang Am, that 10,000 hectares of land in Svay Rieng are prepared to be leased to Yuon companies along the border and also, the Prey Veng governor, Mr. Ung Samy, told the Phnom Penh Post that he will discuss with Yuon officials in Yuon [Vietnam] about the leasing of rice fields along the border to Yuon companies to come to do rice cultivation in Khmer territory.
Yeap is concerned the leases will evolve into ownership changes, resulting in a reduction of Cambodian territory. Others, like Prum Soanara, an engineer, thinks the land is best utilized if given to the country's own citizens to cultivate rice.
KI Media highlights the problem of illegally imported rice with an article from the Nation:
The Thai Rice Exporters' Association and the Board of Trade of Thailand (BoT) will soon propose that the Commerce Ministry set up a Public Warehouse Organisation as an “import agency” to oversee rice imports once the Asean Free Trade Area (Afta) eliminates all import tariffs.
The agency would institute measures to protect Thai farmers, such as requiring imported rice only be used for raw purposes in manufacturing. However, exporters are worried such protections encourage those seeking to manipulate the system, thereby increasing the amount of illegally traded rice, including rice grown in Cambodia.
In addition to its practical roles, rice is symbolic of Cambodian culture, as this video shows. This piece from Khmer Civilization involves images of rice from farm to market:
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Posted by Socheata | Permalink |
Labels: Alleged illegally imported rice from Cambodia to Thailand | Chhunny Chhean | Land leased to Yuons | Rice politics
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