Byline: Hanna Sender

There’s more to Kep than crab

New York has the Statue of Liberty, London has Nelson’s Column and Kep has The Crab. But don’t let these monuments mislead you: New York encloses as much as it liberates; Nelson is not the only man to have saved London’s arse and you don’t have to eat crab if you go to Kep.

And it wouldn’t be so atrocious if you didn’t. Really. The seaside resort of Kep is becoming something of a hotspot for expats, locals and increasingly more tourists. Demand on Kep’s famed crab is immense. One part of the shore is lined with restaurants, which all feature crab as their main dish. Further along is the crab market, where women haul their catch several times a day. The pressure on Kep crab is mounting, which is why it might be a good idea to diversify your culinary experience of the province.

The Sailing Club is an obvious alternative. Offering tables on a platform which juts into the sea, you can smell the ocean and feel its spray as you munch down on a crab-free lunch or dinner. The kitchen serves up the old favourites: chicken and beef burgers, steak sandwiches and BLTs, soups and pastas, with some Khmer specialties thrown in as a reminder of where you are (the whisky-topped cabinets, the stone-walled beach and the sun-bleached decking are positively southern European).

And if you thought the Sailing Club was a break from the bustling energies of the crab market, or any Khmer market for that matter, try out its next-door neighbour. The owners of Knai Bang Chatt know they have created a small wonderland. To get to the restaurant from the Sailing Club you walk through a doorway cut into a heavy wooden gate, not unlike those you’d expect to see set into a medieval castle. Across the lawn, bordered by an infinity pool and bungalows on one side and an ocean view on the other, is the restaurant. Named The Strand, it serves unique dishes with a view towards local delicacies and fine tastes.

The menu changes daily, but expect to see a sorbet and soup course on top of your starter, dessert and main. Bearing in mind the cost of eating so well, the bill is relatively easy to bear: two courses can be rounded to $16 and three, $20. A full menu is $29, or you can simply pay per dish. Something to bear in mind: the dishes are sometimes safe, sometimes a little experimental and sometimes rich.

Finally, a well-kept secret about to be blown out of the water: for a sunset over Kep which is unsurpassed in beauty, enjoyed with a can of Angkor and a chocolate-banana-and-peanut pancake, there is nothing quite like Led Zep Café. Its sporadic opening times mean stumbling up the mountain might be futile, but to arrive at the top and discover the rope across the wooden bridge pulled aside is worth every drop of sweat.

Head up at 5:30pm, take a seat on the balcony and order from a small but delicious (and deliciously cheap) menu. This is an establishment which gives you what you want: ’80s synth music plays out the end of the day against a symphony of colours.

The Sailing Club and Knai Bang Chatt, Phnum Thmey Sangkat Prey Thom Kep
Led Zep Café, Kep National Park

Not-so-ugly duckling

Notable numbers of restaurateurs have been migrating to Phnom Penh from around the world to take a bite of what looks to be a boom in the fine dining market. One such restaurateur is Dah Lee, whose 30 years worth of experience in the industry has been put to practice on Sothearos Boulevard.

Dah Lee’s three-week-old enterprise, The Duck, sits opposite the White Building, an endangered living space which many of Phnom Penh’s dancers and public sector workers call home. The glass façade means that diners can look onto the distinctive building – and the building’s residents right into The Duck.

A surreal moment: two potential customers saunter past the window, stop to look at the menu and discuss their options. Where did they come from? How did they come by The Duck, as if by accident? Where would they go if they didn’t go here? It’s as though a piece of London or New York, including the pavement, has been cut and pasted into Phnom Penh.

That said, The Duck does not seem out of place. Simplicity, Lee remarks, is the start and end point. The décor is muted, the music cool and the staff quick-witted (don’t ask them why duck isn’t on the menu unless you don’t mind being embarrassed in front of your date).

The menu follows the same standard. “Three things on a plate is enough,” says Lee. “The casual fine dining experience is about the ingredients: where they come from, what the animal is fed on.” What the animal is fed on is right: Wagyu Scotch fillet steak is a delicacy one would hardly expect to come across in Phnom Penh and tops out at $39, although the tenderloin, $20, comes up beautifully too. In fact, meat lovers are in their element in The Duck, especially those who enjoy lamb and beef.

Lee arrived in Phnom Penh with 1,000 bottles of wine in his trunk. The wine list is pleasingly long: about double the length of the food menu. His choices are exquisite and his knowledge broad. You can pay as little as $4.50 for a Chenin Blanc, or $12 for Champagne. Whatever you drink, rest assured it will be a treat.

The backbone of the menu is French cuisine, but Lee is keen to stress his dedicated awareness of the major chefs of the time, where they work, what they are cooking, how they are presenting it. The main thrust: to be contemporary, to make a space in Phnom Penh which would be equally at home in Singapore, London or LA.

So does that mean Lee envisages The Duck as a flexible concept, which might change over time? The menu, he says, will always maintain reverence for the classic dishes. Although there is something to be said for a seasonal menu in some climates, Lee is keen to be consistent, to be timeless.

 

The Duck, Sothearos Blvd (next to Trunkh, south of Sihanouk Blvd).

 

Dish: Calling all village people

You don’t have to be an economist to recognise where the potential for money making lies in Phnom Penh. The service industry is one of the fastest-growing in the city and all you have to do is head to BKK 1 to see that growth in action. As Costa Coffee spawns yet another identical building on Street 51, one holds out hope that independent businesses continue to hold their own. More than that: that they reflect something of Cambodia so that we punters can remember where we are.

Newly opened restaurant-cum-bar The Village achieves both of these things in a surprising way.  A large two-storey building with an immense façade, the starkly contemporary front is nonetheless tasteful. It doesn’t bear out awfully or awkwardly into the street, but is built for the climate. It’s a smartly designed building, reminiscent of the New Khmer Architecture of the 1960s and 1970s.

But expect to check the Phnom Penh you know at the door. Within, an immense space opens up: high ceilings, a single dimly-lit dining area and echoing music greet you. There’s nothing like it in this city. To paint a quick picture, think of the Mad Men advertising agents’ favourite haunt, minus the strippers and the cloud of cigar smoke which hovers above diners’ heads.

There’s a touch of elegance to The Village, thanks in part to live music. Forget Holiday in Cambodia’s rendition of Wonderwall. Here you are instead courted by the lively but easygoing tunes of BB King and Stevie Wonder.

Emphasis is placed on conversation, music and cocktails (happy hour is from 4pm to 7pm). A large screen dominates the wall behind the low-set stage and flat-screen TVs are flecked about the restaurant. Recorded shows are played quietly, so don’t think you can get away with ignoring your dining partner.

Much thought has gone into the vibe, but the menu is simple: western food with a hint of Lebanese flavour here and there. Here you can find familiar favourites: pizza, burgers, steak and fish. Although kitchen staff are yet to find their rhythm in timing the cooking of each element of the meal, portions are generous and the staff attentive without being overbearing.

One highlight is the cocktails, flashily made behind a sprawling bar. Drinking alone? Set yourself on a barstool and pull off a Donald Draper-esque cool. But heed this: The Village demands a lively atmosphere to pull off what it has clearly set out to achieve. With this in mind, don’t bring one friend, bring seven. Fill the place, if you can, then simply surrender yourselves to the music.

The Village, #1 Street 360 (cnr Norodom Blvd).

 

Dish: Soirées in secret

In the new millennium, Wendy Lucas and Derek Mayes joined a wedding party in Cambodia. Once the festivities were at an end, the pair continued to enjoy the capital city, though they had some criticisms. “At the time, there were only girly bars in Phnom Penh,” says Wendy. Realising an opportunity for business and adventure, they opened their first bar/restaurant – Talking to a Stranger – in 2002.

Like the city, Wendy and Derek have proven themselves adaptable and open to change. As pressure mounted on restaurant owners in BKK1 and Tonle Bassac (where Talking to a Stranger was situated), the pair stumbled upon a house tucked away on Street 21. On the gate hung a ‘For Rent’ sign. They took it, remodelled it and named it The Lost Room.

The Lost Room is right. Though only a stone’s throw away (across Norodom) from the drinking and dining district, BKK1, the restaurant is secluded from the cacophony of booming stereo-systems of Street 278.

The restaurant may be lost, but it’s certainly not abandoned. The vibe is unabrasively trendy: the exposed brick and cement walls are so New York, but the warmth of the owners and staff is felt as soon as you are ushered in by the doorman.

It’s hip without being too cool; the service is paced without being slow. The wine is handled first: an ample selection picked to complement the food. Then the food menu arrives, which is when Wendy steps in. She asks three questions of any customer – ‘How hungry are you? Have you any allergies? Are you a vegetarian?’ – to help them navigate the menu, which is small but rich in choice. “For larger parties, I offer to order for them. That way, the conversation can keep flowing.” Her expertise is trustworthy and her willingness to adapt the dishes to the requirements of her customers gratefully acknowledged.

Small, tapas-like dishes are combined to make a vegetarian platter while the main courses (made up of more tapas-sized dishes) are being decided on. “It’s all about taste sensations,” Wendy explains. The pear and blue-cheese parcels; falafels, and mushroom and cashew nut pate are set on a single dish and hands set upon the beautifully presented food. But this isn’t a matter of style over substance. The lychee and basil puree (accompanying the pear and blue-cheese parcels) and the tahini dressing (with the falafels) have strong, invigorating flavours which render the stuffed green olives necessary for cleansing the palette.

The menu is constantly changing but there are a few perennial favourites, one of which is the pan-fried sea bass with goat-cheese tartar. Chef Derek animatedly recommends the dish, which, though surprising, is never left unfinished. A vegetable trio of butter-bean mash, red-wine lentils and chickpea stew is enjoyed just as vocally (though bear in mind this dish requires a sweet tooth).

The couple’s zest for cooking is shared with customers as they recommend dishes, relate the origin of each ingredient and graciously accept compliments. But it shows elsewhere, too: the communal eating proviso is a reflection of how they like to eat and the dishes a reflection of what they like to eat – and it’s a genuine pleasure for them to share.

The Lost Room,  #43 Street 21 (behind the black and red gates).

 

The Eyes Have It

When I go back to my village, the children look at me with wide eyes because I look strange to them


Hour Seyha and Nget Chanpenh, recent graduates of the Phare Ponleu Selpak Visual Art School, live side-by-side in Battambang – lauded as the epicentre of Cambodia’s arts scene. But their styles, on exhibition at Romeet Gallery, remain distinct. Seyha’s Children of the Countryside is a series of stark portraits, composed of layers of circles and lurid in colour. “One day, I was painting while I was angry,” he says. “I painted in big brushstrokes, violently; then the paintbrush fell out of my hand. I picked it up and decided to paint without anger; I had to control my anger. Painting in circles is meditation for me.”

Chanpenh’s During the Dark bears more relation to the Expressionist style: darkly rendered hues, illuminated from beneath by lighter shades, form distorted and blurred images of his family. But both artists share the sentiment, summed up by curator Kate O’Hara, that “Art and life are closely related.”

Seyha’s Children of the Countryside is playful, even when the subject is morbid or mournful. A full-body portrait of a crying girl hangs in the centre of a long wall, but she’s realised as a cartoon character or caricature through the enhancement of certain features. Her eyes, like those of all of the children in the series, are massive. “When I go back to my village, the children look at me with wide eyes because I look strange to them,” the artist says.

Although he may appear strange, Seyha is no stranger. The relationship he has with the children of the countryside mirrors our own relationship with his subjects. It is a relationship which simultaneously feels the pangs of intimacy while experiencing the distance of an observer. Seyha speaks of a need to return our gaze to the hardships of such children, forgotten by the residents of fast-developing cities. But the gaze works both ways: the children’s wide-eyed stares recall us to ourselves, to our own state, most likely enviable by comparison.

Children of the Countryside requires the audience to recognise the faces and experiences of Seyha’s subjects and to consciously experience that recognition as a shift from egocentrism to empathy. This is the common impetus behind Seyha and Chanpenh’s work. “Development is local to the city,” says Chanpenh, whose series concentrates on the lives of his family in the provinces. “I want to return attention to the countryside.” During the Dark is the artist’s attempt to divert the capital’s gaze from itself to those closest to him: his own flesh and blood. Sometimes eyes recede into wide faces and are difficult to discern; others blur into the block colour of the visage. Perhaps he wants us to scrutinise those faces; to get closer or stand back; to interact.

“Every painting that I make is of what I know very well,” Chanpenh says, but both artists share a concern that their audience doesn’t know their subjects’ lives well enough. Their painting constitutes an attempt to move the image from the countryside to the city and to transmit knowledge from the artist to his audience. When we see the image, we know the subject: that’s their philosophy.

WHO: Hour Seyha and Nget Chanpenh
WHAT: Children of the Countryside and During the Dark
WHERE: Romeet Gallery, St. 178
WHEN: Now
WHY: A privileged insight into a provincial world

 

Art with no name

Khvay Samnang used to sell his paintings at the market for $15 apiece. Now, favouring the camera lens over the paintbrush, he’s forging a reputation in the international art world – although his focus remains firmly at home.

Untitled, a series of photographs of the artist standing in a downpour of sand half-submerged in lakes, evinces Khvay’s humanitarian and environmental concerns. Untitled uses an invented language of gesture to predicate the impending event of development on land where immense lakes now sit. We are mostly aware of these development plans, but Khvay’s exposition of the anticipated change inspires the sort of reaction no news report can.

A news report is a commentary, which Khvay is determined Untitled is not. Untitled is a parody – a serious parody – which exists prior to the event. It’s a cipher: encrypting the event in a language of gesture, while decrypting it by rendering the event in simple terms, all without the help (or hindrance) of the written or spoken word.

Oddly, the seriousness of the consequences of such development is only accessible in this form. Khay’s is an intimate parody, which seems to say ‘This is too much,’ rather than asserting how it is. It bespeaks the unnarratable, but the language of gesture is understandable. It functions to illuminate the condition and it is beautiful in its simplicity.

This month, Khvay will show a documentary film which accompanies Untitled in the group show New Artefacts at Sa Sa Bassac Gallery. This film has never been shown before because, up until now, Khvay hasn’t found an appropriate platform for it.

“When I exhibited Untitled in 2011, I included one video with the photographs. I wanted to have more video, but I felt the documentary video was fighting with the photographs. The documentary is the opposite from the photographs. I would have liked to show them all together but the contrast made me decide to show together with only the video of the dropping sand, not a documentary video. When Roger (Nelson, curator) talked with me about the idea for New Artefacts, I feel like ‘Oh my God, I have the video!’”

Khvay’s urge to record his process bespeaks a natural drive to document. It’s a form of savouring the temporary: that which is threatened, which is the landscape itself, but also the instantaneous nature of the photograph, without context. He seems to establish another base on which his vision can stand.

The documentary reveals a new ‘truth’: the truth of Khvay’s creative experience. “In the video you can see the local people keeping busy working but still looking. I didn’t ask them what they think about my work because I think maybe the security is coming, so I needed to hurry up.” The video highlights the individuality of the locals, some of whom feature in the photographs, but appear as potential subjects of the images’ aesthetic.

Another conflict between photograph and video occurs on the site of Khvay’s body. The photographs evince Chinese contemporary arts pioneer Wang Jianwei’s notion that “the artist as an individual participates in the process and eliminates his personal power so as to eliminate all desire for self-expression” as a completed process by the time the photograph is taken.

The video demonstrates the process of that elimination. Khvay wading into the water is an experience which centres more on the individual’s struggle towards achieving his vision, eliciting moments of disgust and compassion. It is as though during the walk towards the point at which Khvay will be photographed, he is shedding his self-expression, his corporeal skin, to become the gesturing figure, the symbol of the drowned.

WHO: Khvay Samnang
WHAT: Untitled documentary and photography exhibition
WHERE: Sa Sa Bassac Gallery, #18 2nd Floor, Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: August
WHY: An intimate parody of development

 

To be,or not to be

The Free Your Minds festival organised by Meta House purports to expose the connotations of freedom. It was conceived as a means for “triggering a creative dialogue on how to overcome constraints and further develop the country.” Meta House director Nico Mesterharm exonerates his participants and audiences to free themselves from the bondage of constrained thought and activity in favour of an ambiguous end: freedom.

Leang Seckon, one of the artists exhibiting in Global Hybrid: Freedom!, engages with the ambiguity of the concept. His performance work, Shadow of the Heavy Skirt, will be featured as a recorded video in Meta House. The piece features artist Lim Sokchanlina, dancer Charlottle Delaporte and Seckon himself in a three-part performance. The parts occur simultaneously: like Seckon’s collages, the separate elements interact with and inform each other, but do not merge. All three actors in the performance keep to their own space and perform states which continually turn back on themselves.

The absence of a linear narrative means that Shadow of the Heavy Skirt refuses to be read as an instruction on ‘how to be free’. Rather, it is an articulation of states of being, one of which implies itself as more ‘free’ than the others (Charlotte Delaporte’s dance). But the performance, like Seckon’s collage, is rhizomatic. The non-hierarchical existence of these states of being means that the more ‘free’ state is not purported to be the aim, nor the end. The whole performance exists in flux between states of being burdened, restless and free.

Seckon’s philosophy of life is cyclical rather than linear. He believes that we are “always fixing”, that we can be free, but that the shadow will inevitably catch up to us again. Asked to clarify his definition of freedom, he agrees that the best way to think of it is as a temporary thing: “We cannot be free forever. If we are free forever, then we are the crazy person in the room.”

Shadow of the Heavy Skirt is a throwback to Heavy Skirt: one of Seckon’s installation pieces, which has been exhibited in London’s Rossi & Rossi Gallery. “Everything is following [from Heavy Skirt],” he says. The emptying of Boeung Kak Lake was, for Seckon, a second manifestation of the continued influence of Heavy Skirt. “Boeung Kak was my home, and had many activities for my eyes. You see the shadow continues, follows me.”

Seckon has since moved to Siem Reap. “I cannot find it [a home like the one he had in Boeung Kak Lake], but I am trying to fix what happened.” Seckon’s philosophy is practical, but he is as idealistic as he is rational. His idealism exists where it can exist: in Seckon’s mind and in his art. For although man cannot be free forever, art can. “My mind, when I try to make work, is not free. But the work is free. People say artists are free, but we are not. We make work that is free.”

When freedom is unattainable in the long-term, it seems to be interchangeable with relaxation. “They are like brother and sister. Our minds are empty for a while.” But freedom itself is not negated by the presence of its attainable sibling; it remains an idea. “We can find an idea of freedom. This is how we can find a way to be free.”

Seckon always chooses to speak with the pronoun ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. His ideas are not ego-centric; they are communal. He points out the shape of tessellating fish scales, ubiquitous in his work. “I like this image. Everything is connected.” At some point, even the separate elements of collage unify: “It moves together, like the cloud and like the sky: free colour and free brush.”

Shadow of the Heavy Skirt is testimony to Seckon’s philosophy of fundamental unity between his artworks, and between his art and life. Everything moves together, momentarily; the mind can relax in this assured unity of things and life. When the shadow of separateness catches up with us again, we maintain our idea of freedom from the chaos of separate elements and endeavour towards it. Seckon’s work enacts this movement into unity: it invites rather than excludes people, creating communities of thinkers whose beings tessellate together, if only for a moment.

WHO: Leang Seckon
WHAT: Shadow of the Heavy Skirt performance
WHEN: July
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHY: To come together, right now

 

The persistence of memory

In 1997, French curator Christian Caujolle collected 100 ‘identity portraits’ from Tuol Sleng torture centre for an exhibition at annual photography festival Les Rencountres photographiques d’Arles. He placed the exhibition under the theme The Duty of Memory, but photographer Nhem Ein’s unapologetic, even proud, stance prompted speculation on whether the images would have been better placed under the other themes, Forms of Commitment or The Temptations of Power.

The inclusion of the Tuol Sleng images in the festival, and later in the New York Museum of Modern Art collection, begged another question: are these photographs really art? Twenty-two year old Sin Rithy’s current solo exhibition, What Were They Thinking?, is today reinvigorating that debate. Rithy has enlarged some of the images in his paintings and then effectively destroyed their clarity – a pattern of renewal and destruction that’s affected over a series of 15 paintings.

Rithy’s fundamental concern is that the series works as a memorial to the prisoners at Tuol Sleng. He places immense emphasis on the need to empathise with the suffering of the men, women and children interred in the Khmer Rouge’s notorious interrogation centre, also known as S-21. “I want people to move outside of themselves,” says Rithy, whose unwavering faith in the force of the photographs can be confusing given that his paintings seem vulnerable to the outside effects of aging and weather. “People don’t think about the regime anymore. I hope that the series will help people to think about the feelings of the victims. I chose these images because they are strong. They can communicate.”

The series is divisible by three distinct styles. Only one of these styles – the sunspotted one – can be interpreted as part of the memorialising aspect of his work. The sunspots which blotch some of the paintings are intended, says the artist, to signify the working conditions of prisoners forced to labour in the country’s rice fields.

To make sense of the series as a whole, one would have to acknowledge an overarching conflict between two contradictory forces, which transcends but does not belie the function of evoking empathy. Memorial is one aspect of the series; erasure is the significant other.

What Were They Thinking? evokes the effects of the elements on the physical memorial. Like English Romantic poet Percy Shelley’s most famous short poem Ozymandias, their visages are “half sunk” under the weight of time. Rithy’s paintings simultaneously memorialise and violently erase the horror of S-21.

These paintings have come to Phnom Penh at an interesting point in Cambodian art history. MoMA’s decision to collect the photographs from Tuol Sleng, thereby raising them to the status of art (and subsequently Nhem Ein to the status of artist), contributed to two age-old questions: what constitutes art, and do ethics enter into the practice of art collecting? Rithy’s What Were They Thinking? reminds us of these questions but asks a further one, which can be located in a local, Cambodian debate: is it acceptable to tire of seeing these images?

American essayist Susan Sontag told the world that “images anesthetise”. Pass countless bookstores and book stalls in Phnom Penh and one cannot help but notice the sellers’ tendency to thrust into the foreground publications concerned with the Khmer Rouge. The clash of conflicting forces in Rithy’s series save this body of work from accusations of anesthetising effects. His images are performances: they undo themselves before our eyes. We must seek out the original photograph, only to see it blister and blur around the edges.

Sontag also wrote that “the camera’s rendering of reality must always hide more than it discloses”. What Were They Thinking? plays upon that pattern. Rithy’s paintings remind audiences of the horror of the Khmer Rouge regime, while hiding it behind the anesthetising effects of time.

“This is an old story, but it can be made new,” says Rithy. Arguably, his paintings actually move in the opposite direction. The photograph, forever reproducible and forever made anew, is submitted to the effects of time by transferral to the medium of paint. The painting registers the effects of time and cannot be renewed in its original state by machine or man. What Were They Thinking? makes the old story new by asking these questions of the audience. The images may be tired, but the debate is not.

WHO: Sin Rithy
WHAT: What Were They Thinking? exhibition
WHERE: Romeet Gallery, St. 178
WHEN: July 5 to August 2
WHY: The images may be old, but the debate isn’t

 

Curious and suspicious is how I’d describe them

In 1940s New York, a group of Abstract Expressionists – including Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning – met in studios, galleries and bars to discuss their work, their philosophy, and, occasionally, to throw punches at one another. The group took on the moniker The Club, after the name of a favourite venue. Across the globe and throughout art history, artists, curators and writers have discovered stimulating ideas, challenging personal philosophies and inspiration in each other. The value of discussion – not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself – cannot be doubted. It has made itself known in the very work artists have produced.

The organisers of arts+society, a new discussion group formed in Phnom Penh, have given their group a less ambiguous name and certainly are not expecting any violence, but they are hoping for just as stimulating conversation. Charlotte Craw, Khiang Hei and Roger Nelson established arts+society for a community of artists, curators, art writers and arts enthusiasts whose ties to Cambodia are as strong as their ties to art. The idea is to remedy a clear bias in Cambodian education towards business, economics and technology; to assert the importance of intellectual debate and to establish that discussion can be productive in itself.

“There is a trend in Cambodia of experts telling non-experts information, which the non-experts have to imbibe. Arts+society challenges the assumption that experts know more than non-experts,” says Nelson. “We don’t think that we have the answers. We want different ideas from different perspectives.” The binary of expert/non-expert is under attack: the organisers are endeavouring to establish a community where people learn on equal terms.

The Bophana Centre gave arts+society a space to hold the inaugural meeting and volunteer translators were on standby. Their role was vital: for a smooth-running, dynamic discussion to be possible, complex theories had to be translated between Khmer and English without losing their original sense. Roger also noted the importance of using a space not associated with a gallery in Phnom Penh. “We wanted a neutral space so that everybody – experts, non-experts, professionals and students alike – would feel comfortable sharing their ideas.”

There were 27 bodies at the May 24 meeting, mostly those of Khmer arts students. “One of the reasons we held the event on Sunday morning was to ensure it wasn’t dominated by Westerners,” says Nelson. Before they began the debate, Khiang and Charlotte both voiced their concern that Khmer speakers might feel as though they have to borrow Western terms to discuss their art. “Arts+society is about finding ways to talk about Cambodian art in the Khmer language,” Charlotte told the group. Their concerns were valid: one Khmer speaker had to resort to using the English word ‘gallery’, much to the group’s amusement.

The title for the first meeting was ‘arts+craft’. Members of the group were invited to consider the difference between art and craft; why we might consider craft to be more feminine than art, and whether art can be ‘useful’. The conversation began with some confusion, with one member apparently thinking it a suitable forum for pitching sales ideas. Dany Chan – the artist currently exhibiting at Sa Sa Bassac – then opened the discussion proper by saying that the difference between art and craft lay in the intent of sale. His to-the-point and open-ended assertion was not, unfortunately, the model for the remainder of the discussion.

It became clear that Roger’s plan – for each person to say at least one thing about each question – was going to go unrealised. Certain voices dominated what at times seemed more like an art history lecture than a participatory, dynamic discussion. “I was immensely disappointed at the dominance of a Western voice,” says Roger. The conversation veered towards a Western tradition of art, which alienated many of those present. Only a few were able to comment on some of the ideas raised and many remained silent throughout.

The driving impetus behind arts+society is to affect a shift from a Western-dominated debate to a debate not only applicable to, but specific to, Cambodian art and philosophy. “We need ideas that we can all share,” says Roger. One participant brought up the concept of the ‘aura’ – a notion discussed in Walter Benjamin’s seminal essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. “At first I wondered whether Benjamin had a place in this discussion, but the idea of the aura was brought up in such a way as to make it applicable to Cambodian art and comprehensible to everyone present.” Arts+society is not about avoiding complex ideas in favour of a basic appreciation of art: some concepts cross cultures readily. The members of arts+society just have to find these concepts.

“Hopefully we’ll see arts+society develop over time,” says Roger. “We want to continue to see more Khmer participants, to hear more Khmer voices.” He also voiced a desire to have professional artists give presentations at the meetings. Asked what he thought of the predominantly male presence, Roger answered that it reflected a condition common to Cambodia: more males attend university than females. “It’s a sad reality. Hopefully it won’t always be like that.”

The flexibility of the forum is its most attractive attribute. The organisers are not dictators: they want people to participate as speakers and facilitators. They’re currently soliciting suggestions for the next meeting. Speak up.

WHO: Anyone who loves art
WHAT: arts+society debate
WHERE: Future venues TBC
WHEN: June 24 (monthly)
WHY: To discuss Cambodian art on Cambodian terms

 

In orb of futility, reminders of the country’s brutal past

Great artists push boundaries, expanding the definition of art until it becomes indefinable. Cambodian artists are no exception. Not long ago, Sareth Svay undertook a journey from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh which lasted more than eight nights and nine days, dragging behind him an 80kg metal sphere measuring two metres in diameter and carrying only basic food, water and a blue tarpaulin. His extraordinary feat of endurance art was called simply Mon Boulet.

Sareth grew up in the Site 2 camp on the Thai border, and it was there he first studied art (he later went on to found the Phare Phonlue Selepak art school in Battambang). His earliest memory is the blue tarpaulin on which he slept: his rudimentary bed on the floor of the forest. Decades later, the brightly coloured tarpaulin is still a significant motif among his childhood memories.

After studying in France, Sareth returned home to confront the traces of Cambodia’s recent history, and this is where the immense sphere figures into his work. “The ball is a souvenir from the past. The ball and harness allude to the European phrase ‘ball and chain’.” It signifies personal baggage, entrapment and restricted movement: Mon Boulet was a task of continual resistance against the dragging force.

The project isn’t just the metaphorical conception of a man dragging the past behind him; Mon Boulet refers to the efforts of the men, women and children who endured forced labour under the Khmer Rouge: “Men would be harnessed to carts and made to drag things behind them in the fields.”

Over the course of its journey, Sareth’s ball has been inscribed by many different hands. “People have so many questions they want to ask. I cannot remember them all, there are so many. So I have asked people to write their questions on the ball.” The sphere is thus marked by individual voices, each asking their own questions regarding the civil war; each using Mon Boulet to satisfy their need to have those questions addressed. They do not expect a verbal or written answer; they seek release from the question itself through the enduring movement of Sareth and his multifarious ball.

For those critics who continue to question the point of Sareth’s labour, there is none. That is the point. Like Sisyphus, Sareth’s journey may never have an end. He’s working through questions posed by history but probably won’t find an answer. Albert Camus, the Frech philosopher, considers that Sisyphus, being conscious of the futility of his struggle, can draw victory from his captors. That Sisyphus trundles back down the mountain to push the rock back up to the summit again, that Sareth bothers to harness himself to a metal sphere, confirms that man has not been exhausted. To make the endeavour “makes fate a human matter, which must be settled by men”. Sareth claims man’s fate from Cambodia’s tragic history and from his own past simply by enduring Mon Boulet, his self-imposed task.

Sareth prefers work that moves across great distances, which makes seeing him rather tricky. His journey was, however, filmed – and it is about to take on a different life as a film and exhibition. Mon Boulet remarks upon history by mimicking its evolution from event to museum, giving us the chance to consider Sareth’s work and the changes it is about to make to art history.

WHO: Sareth Svay
WHAT: Mon Boulet
WHEN: May 31 to June 23
WHERE: Institut Français du Cambodge, St. 184
WHY: Catch a glimpse of man’s eternal struggle