Contemporary Arts Orgs in Phnom Penh

I’ve been in Phnom Penh for one week now and have started my residency with JavaArts, a place I’m getting to know well and very excited to be part of.

Dana Langlois, the director of JavaArts, set up a cafe and bakery in the centre of Phnom Penh in 2000 as a cultural enterprise and the project has grown to become one of Cambodia’s most reputable contemporary arts spaces. The cafe and bakery supports the gallery and art projects and from Dana’s hard work, an Arts Festival about the city in transition, has evolved…The Our City Festival www.ourcityfestival.org

Many people, both local and international, have collaborated with the festival over the years, and this year, as part of asialink, I’ll be collaborating as well. Helping to develop and produce the various events and activities for Jan 2014.

Dana’s words on Java: “It works to sustain arts practice for artists, researchers, curators and other creative practitioners and has provided a launching pad to many emerging artists who have since gone on to become prominent figures in the contemporary art world.”

One of their current exhibitions featuring the work of Anida Yoeu Ali is on the website (http://javaarts.org/) and is situated on the second floor of the gallery, where customers drink coffee and eat lunch amidst a giant orange bug. More info about Anida’s work here, including a documentary her husband is making about an exiled Cambodian American poet: http://studio-revolt.com/.

Another exhibition that has developed a high profile in Cambodia and also internationally is the 40 Pots + 4 Sketches project from Amy Lee Sanford. Both Anida and Amy have Cambodian heritage and moved to the US with either all, or part of, their families. Their artwork is in direct response to cultural and historical dislocation, an ‘in-between-ness’ and the lasting psychological affects of war. Both have very different personal experiences and responses to what happened in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime and as I have not met either of them yet, I will comment no more, but I’m hoping to interview them in the coming months.

It seems like everyone here has been effected by the Pol Pot era, and most people either lived through it or lost members of their family during those tragic years. As a newcomer to the culture and arts space here in Cambodia, my observations are naive but I can see that despite such a tragic past, and despite the fact that many people are still struggling here, Phnom Penh is a bustling vibrant city, bursting with opportunity.  A language lesson or two will hopefully help me to understand the situation better and I await my second lesson in Khmer next week. Very early days.

Had a quick visit at Romeet Gallery, http://www.romeet.com/ which supports contemporary Cambodian artists as well, and am looking forward to meeting the Gallery Curator, Kate O’Hara next week. Some pics from the Gallery…

A couple of other places I’ve been able to poke my head into in the past week are:

Meta House – a German run art initiative with a Gallery and also outdoor cinema. They screen socially conscious films from around the world and Cambodian films every evening.

http://www.meta-house.com/

 

 

 

The French Cultural Institute of Cambodia: Library, Gallery and School…http://www.institutfrancais-cambodge.com/index.php?lang=en

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are many more spaces to check out and people to meet and I will post more as it happens.

My new workspace, in the JavaArts Lab – where Amy’s Pots are currently on exhibit. We’ll be packing it down next week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Java also hosted a spoken word night, mid week. The cafe can quickly transform into a performance or gallery space. “Triptych” by Scott Bywater http://thesilverpepperofthestars.wordpress.com/ and Warren Daly, Alex Leonard &  Hal Fx.

One of the many wholesome meals this week. Culinary Heaven!