Coiled serenely at the edge of a rice field, tail trailing from the back of an ox cart. Draped over the ancient stones of Ta Prom, beneath a billowing Cambodian flag. The now 40-metre-long bright orange ‘bug’ elicits uncomprehending stares almost everywhere. Others conspicuously anywhere but. Inspired by the concept of otherness, performance artist Anida Yoeu Ali was swathed in bright orange ‘skin’ the colour of Buddhist robes and a headpiece based on the Islamic hijab. Dressed as The Buddhist Bug, she then inserted herself into various landscapes both rural and urban, often with hilarious results. In this Siem Reap stop on the bug’s ongoing world tour, new images reveal the bug emerging from idyllic landscapes and caught in a group tour of an Angkorian temple. The audience is invited to consider these vignettes ‘otherworldly postcards from a traveller, the bug, playfully exploring sites of displacement and belonging’. Says the artist: “Some of these vignettes are nostalgic ruminations dissecting the Diasporic dilemma, one that is caught between memory and reinvention. The series continues my interest in hybridity, transcendence and otherness, but I’m also introducing images that complicate an idealised identity. Siem Reap is the perfect site for an encounter with the bug, set against Cambodia’s iconic sites of rice fields, decaying colonial structures, ancient temples and tropical horizons.”
WHO: Anida Yoeu Ali
WHAT: Buddhist Bug exhibition opening
WHERE: The 1961, Upper West Riverside, Siem Reap
WHEN: 10am December 21
WHY: Have you caught the bug yet?