Out of Nowhere: Contemporary Cambodian Photography

ZHUANG WUBIN
THE MYTHOLOGY THAT CONTEMPORARY Cambodian photography has emerged from nowhere has been frequently brandished by parachute curators and art writers. A recent example is found in the catalogue of PhotoPhnomPenh 2008, a new festival organised by the French Cultural Centre in Phnom Penh. Christian Caujolle, founder of VU Photo Agency (Agence VU), writes here that fifteen years back, photography was virtually absent from Phnom Penh, especially in its cultural and creative dimension. Local photography was limited to what is called applied photography, intended for the press or for postcards.1 The observation is not entirely untrue. However, it ignores the fact that Cambodian artists in the 1950s and the 60s had already deliberated over the possible negative influence of photography on painting. In fact, many of the painters from the School of Cambodian Arts would, upon graduation, use photography to aid their artistic practices.2 As such, it is premature to dismiss the cultural function of photography in Cambodia before the 1990s. Like the Vietnamese government which has truncated the history of Saigon at the point of reunification in 1975, Caujolle has truncated the historiography of Cambodian photography at the reign of the Khmer Rouge (KR) from 1975 to 1979. The KR had definitely dislocated the development of arts in Cambodia. However, the photographic documentations they left behind of their tragic policies, including the ghastly portraits of the Tuol Sleng prison, constitute an important part of the countrys visual heritage. In fact, contemporary photographers like Khvay Samnang (b. 1982; Svay Rieng Province, Cambodia) have already referenced these prison mug shots in their works. Featured in PhotoPhnomPenh, Reminder (2008) is an obvious example. Working as an art teacher at Chea Sim High School, some two hours away from Phnom Penh, Khvay was tasked to take ID photos of the students. When they saw the portraits, their immediate reaction was that they looked like prisoners. That gave him the idea for Reminder. The Cambodian Chinese artist elaborates:
In Phnom Penh, schools dont bring students to the Tuol Sleng. And we dont teach that much of KR history. Each year, there is a ceremony to mark the liberation from the KR. But they never feed you the details. It is always about Pol Pot. Nevertheless, when young people think of Tuol Sleng, they will always recall the portraits. As such, there is no need to replicate the Tuol Sleng portraits in Reminder. This is already enough to make people feel about the KR history.3

Khvay learnt about the genocide through his parents. During the KR, his parents lived in their native village near the Cambodian border. While there was not enough to eat, the threat of being killed was actually quite low. Since the liberation, his village has been absorbed into the

geographical boundary of Vietnam. Visually, Khvays portraits are not unlike ID photos shot in other countries. However, the burden of Cambodias recent history clearly weighs upon the psyche of the younger generation, however imperfect an idea they may have of the KR reign. Removed from this context, Reminder loses its signifying power. Nevertheless, it is an important example of a younger artist born in the post-KR era articulating their thoughts on recent Cambodian history, and by using photos of young Cambodians, Khvay seems to be hypothesising the choices that they must make in relation to this historical burden. Can the KR history possibly scar young Cambodians forever? Are those who ignore the episode necessarily lesser off? The expressionless portraits in Reminder provide no comforting answer. A graduate in modern painting from the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA) in Phnom Penh, Khvay joined the photo workshop run by French photographer Stphane Janin from September 2006 to June 2007. At that time, Janin also owned Le Popil Gallery, which featured exhibitions by Cambodian photographers. Like several of the workshop participants, Khvays original impetus for learning photography was to use the medium to aid his work as a painter. Now, the painter sees photography as an additional medium to express his ideas. Kong Vollak (b. 1983; Phnom Penh, Cambodia) also participated in Janins workshop. A sculpture graduate from RUFA in 2006, Kong teaches drawing and Khmer art history in a high school at Svay Rieng Province and earns about US$30 a month to support his practice as a multi-

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disciplinary artist. In Night Building (2009), Kong moves beyond the KR history that Khvay references in Reminder, to address the urbanisation of Phnom Penh. The first few skyscrapers are being constructed across the city and Kong is ambivalent, hoping that they will be built surrounding the city centre, so that the history of Phnom Penh can still be preserved inside the city. Not surprisingly, when governmental and commercial interests are keener to cut up and sell off Cambodia, Kongs proposal falls on deaf ears. Aesthetically, the artist aims to combine his knowledge of drawing and photography in Night Building.
First, I got onto the tourist boat that would go by the Royal Palace, so that I could take some pictures of the city at night. But when I noticed the insects flying around the lamps on the boat, I decided to photograph their flight. The patterns allude to human form. After printing the images, I would then scrape away the print using a nail to create drawings of these skyscrapers. The work is not about todays Phnom Penh. It is about Phnom Penh of the future.4

Within the context of Cambodia, Night Building is a departure because Kong has tried to create new linkages between photography and other mediums. His intervention on the images moves his work beyond the notion that good photography equates with high-quality prints and beautiful aesthetics. Within his generation of photographers, Vandy Rattana (b. 1980; Phnom Penh, Cambodia) has been the first to emerge on an international level (exhibiting in Shanghai, Hong Kong and the Netherlands, for instance). Known primarily as a documentary photographer, Vandys work stems from a broader, existentialist concern:
What details make us Cambodians? I want to reveal the internal, to archive Cambodia as much as I can. Its not for me. We have to tell the world who we are.5

His first set of work, Looking In (2005-06), addresses the issue by directing the viewfinder at his mundane

surroundings to counterbalance the clichd perception of Cambodia as a land of monks and beggars. It is also an attempt to reconstruct the memory of Cambodia after the dislocation of genocide and wars. The project actually comprises two stand-alone series, the first of which sees Vandy studying his family members and the details of his house using a Yashica FX7 and a 50mm lens (his first camera, a gift from a teacher in 2005). In the second series, Vandy focuses on his colleagues at the telecommunications company where he worked at that time, following them as they reported for work, put on make-up, answered calls and took naps. Behind the unremarkable images of Looking In is a cool analysis together with the genuine sense of excitement and empowerment that Vandy felt when he first experimented with photography. Vandys interest in the medium blossomed almost naturally, his initial source of imagery coming predominantly from films: Vietnamese and Soviet films by the late 80s, and Indian films in the 90s. After receiving his Yashica, Vandy would meet with Erin Gleeson, an American specialist on Cambodian contemporary art who spent several weekends talking to him about the basics of photography, and who championed his experimentation with the medium. In Road (2007), Vandy moves away from the documentary approach to articulate his ideas in metaphors. Taking pieces of cardboard, he spontaneously cut out lines and circles, creating maze-like patterns in the process. Attaching the cardboard pieces on his door, Vandy photographed them in the day to create black-and-white photographic diagrams. Made for the Mekong Art Exchange, Road symbolises the political intrigues between Cambodia and her Mekong neighbours of Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. Using circles to represent the countries, the neighbours appear to be caught up in a game of attrition,6 Vandy ever mindful of compatriot tensions living under the Vietnamese in the post-KR era.

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Vandy, Khvay and Kong are also members of Stiev Selepak, which means Art Rebels in Khmer. Founded in 2007, the collective represents a paradigm shift in Khmer art, argues Gleeson. Apparently, traditional Khmer culture favours the ensemble. Working with the masses is the highest calling for an artist. As such, individual expression, a keystone of contemporary art practice, stands against that tradition. On one hand, having the collective allows them to pool resources. On the other hand, they hope to show that individualistic expression is for the masses, too.7 Since the start of 2009, they have also founded Sa Sa Gallery in Phnom Penh, Cambodias first artistrun space. Heng Ravuth (b. 1985; Phnom Penh, Cambodia) is also a member of the collective. A classmate of Khvay Samnang at RUFA, Hengs original motivation for joining Janins workshop was exactly the same as his friend. Since then, he has been using the medium for his artistic practice, shooting primarily with a Canon digital compact camera that he bought in 2006. To support himself, he works as a part-time drawing teacher for kids. Over the years, Heng has also participated in other workshops, with that of Magnum photographer Antoine DAgata leaving a particularly strong impression. He told Heng not to be afraid to show his sense of self in his photographs. When the audience see my work, I want them to see me in each image, explains Heng.8 In this sense, his projects privilege personal issues over social ones. In his work, Heng usually makes many pictures of his chosen model within a generic space exploring the body with his camera, looking for answers to obscure mysteries. His own body (a matter of convenience, he admits) is the subject of Dream (2006-07). In Waiting (2008), he used his cousin as the model. Again, the choice was generic. He concedes he doesnt know much about her life. What he wants is to convey a sense of longing in this work. Apart from asking her not to smile, Heng allowed his cousin to create the poses. It was a collaborative process. For Chan Moniroth Chiart (b. 1980; Phnom Penh, Cambodia), who is not a member of Stiev Selepak, her artistic practice is also collaborative, an extension of her personal interest in dressing up and taking pictures of her kids for fun. The late Magnum photographer Philip Jones Griffiths used to be a houseguest of Chan and her New Zealand husband whenever he was in Phnom Penh. When Chan showed him these domestic snaps in 2006, Griffiths encouraged her to take part in the workshop at the annual Angkor Photography Festival where she developed her series Cinderella (2006).9 At that time, DAgata was involved in the festival workshop. The French photographer encouraged Chan to do something related to her family snaps of kids. In Cinderella, instead of photographing her kids, Chans model was a street kid selling postcards in Siem Reap. When she is poor and dirty, people look down on her, explains Chan. When she is clean and dressed up, our impression changes. My idea is to question the way people make judgments based merely on appearances.10 Compared to Heng, Chan seems to have found a meeting point between her domestic snaps, which clearly exist in the personal realm, and the reality in Cambodia. Unlike much hard-hitting documentary work about poverty in Cambodia, Cinderella does not overwhelm its audience with helplessness. Instead, it allows viewers the space to reflect on their gaze, which is partly responsible for casting these street kids as poor and useless. In Simple Fashion (2007), Chans eldest daughter (b. 2000) is the model, dressed in junk materials that are not meant to be worn. As an extension of the family pictures she has always taken, Simple Fashion is more private and

P 5/ Chan Moniroth Chiart, Untitled, from Simple Fashion series, 2007. Image courtesy the artist. P 6/ Chan Moniroth Chiart, Untitled images from the Cinderella series, 2006. Image courtesy the artist. THIS PAGE: 1/ Heng Ravuth, Untitled, from the Dream series, 2006-07. Image courtesy the artist. 2/ Kong Vollak, Untitled, from the Night Building series, 2009. Image courtesy the artist.

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7. Erin Gleeson, Sa Sa Gallerys Art Rebels Forge New Creative Paths, The Phnom Penh Post, Lifestyle section, 19 March, 2009.
1 + 2/ Vandy Rattana, Untitled images from Looking In series, 2005-06. Image courtesy the artist. 3/ S-21 Prisoner. Image courtesy Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum/DC-Cam Archives.

8. Heng Ravuth, interview by author, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 25 March, 2009. 9. Founded in 2005 and based in the tourist town of Siem Reap, this annual festival is not really geared for Cambodian artists. 10. Chan Moniroth Chiart, interview by author, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 28, 2009. The author would like to thank Maria Stott from On Photography Cambodia for offering him a place to stay when he visited Phnom Penh on March 2009 to interview some of the photographers featured in this article. Vandy Rattana is one of several artists from the Mekong region represented at the sixth Asia Pacific Triennial (APT 6), along with Bi Cng Khnh, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Pich Sopheap, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Svay Ken, Tun Win Aung and Wah Nu: Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 5 December 2009 to 5 April 2010. Zhuang Wubin is a researcher on contemporary South-East Asian photography and a documentary photographer.

less imbued by the situation in Cambodia, with Chans daughter an eager collaborator in the process. Like Vandy Rattana, Chan sees the need for Cambodian photographers to start telling stories about Cambodia. She explains: Foreign photographers usually focus on lady-boys and prostitutes whenever they do stories about Cambodia. These works are useless to Cambodians. In their modest ways, Chan and the photographers featured in this article are trying to counter this disturbing phenomenon. For the parachute curators though, these photographers must have emerged out of nowhere. It is a comforting mythology to have, particularly for those who seek to undermine the autonomy of Cambodian arts.
Notes 1. Christian Caujolle, PhotoPhnomPenh, exhibition catalogue, French Cultural Centre, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2008, p. 7. 2. Ly Daravuth and Ingrid Muan, Cultures of Independence: An Introduction to Cambodian Arts and Culture in the 1950s and 1960s, Reyum, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2001, p. 244. 3. Khvay Samnang, interview by author, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 25, 2009. 4. Kong Vollak, interview by author, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 27, 2009. 5. Vandy Rattana, interview by author, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, December, 2006. 6. Vandy Rattana, interview by author, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, November, 2007.

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