Performance and Its Documentation in Visual Art in Cambodia

UDAYA, Journal of 12, 2014 UDAYA, Khmer Studies, “Performance is Contemporary:” Performance and its Documentation in Visual Art in Cambodia “PERFORMANCE IS CONTEMPORARY:” PERFORMANCE AND ITS DOCUMENTATION IN VISUAL ART IN CAMBODIA Roger Nelson University of Melbourne At a “live painting” and “performance” event in Battambang on March 30, 2014 (titled Selpak Kandia and collaboratively organized by a group of artists including Roeun សិល្បៈកណ䮏ៀ Sokhom [រឿន សុខុម] and Pen Robit [ប៉្ន រ៉ូប៊ីត]), one artist inadvertently flung paint onto an expensive DSLR camera (the photographer happened to poke the lens around the edge of a canvas just as the painter was expressively hurling paint with his hands). Clearly, photographic and video recording was not a key consideration in the planning of this event. Rather, Selpak Kandia —like many other “live painting” and “performance” events organized by this group of artists over recent years in Battambang— was intended to gather and engage a large, live audience of passersby (Figure 1).1 By contrast, when Khvay Samnang ) covered his face and bare body in newspaper (ខ䮜្ សំ㮶ង clippings and stumbled blindly for several minutes over the newly sand-filled Boeung Kak Lake on March 7, 2011, there was no live audience other than fellow artist Lim Sokchanlina ( លីម សុខាន់លី㮶), who assisted with filming. Indeed, the timing and precise location of this action was I acknowledge the continuing sovereignty of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nations as the Indigenous owners of the land, in Melbourne, Australia, where sections of this essay were written, including at The University of Melbourne. As is customary, I offer my respects to the Wurundjeri elders, past and present. Some sections of this essay were originally presented at Contemporary Art in Cambodia: A Historical Inquiry, a symposium jointly presented by Cornell University and the Center for Khmer Studies, and held at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, on April 21, 2013. I am grateful for the comments offered at that symposium, and to the Australia Council for the Arts and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust for grants that made my travel to New York possible. I am also very thankful to the editors of this edition of Udaya, Journal of Khmer Studies for their many helpful comments, and also to the anonymous reviewer of an earlier draft of this essay. Thank you also to my doctoral supervisors at the University of Melbourne: Edwin Jurriëns, Lewis Mayo, and Nikos Papastergiadis. 1 Conversations with Pen Robit and Roeun Sokhom, 2014. Unless otherwise noted, all subsequent references to Pen Robit or Roeun Sokhom are from conversations with the author during 2013 and 2014. Where necessary, all translation is by the author. Selpak Kandia translates as “termite art.” Roeun explained that the event organizers believe that it would take the interest and participation of “many, many people” to build the kind of art community of which they dreamed— just as it takes “many, many termites” to build a nest. I estimate that there were at least 200 people gathered to watch this event. 95 Roger Nelson carefully chosen to minimize the risk of encountering incidental passersby, especially authorities. Yet Khvay considers this action, as well as the single-channel video that resulted from it (titled Newspaper Man, 2011), to be “performance,” and it is understood in this way by many of his peers in Cambodia (Figure 2). Figure 1: Two views of Selpak Kandia, a ‘live painting’ event collaboratively organized by a group of artists including Roeun Sokhom and Pen Robit, held in front of Psar Nat, Battambang, March 30, 2014. Photographs by the author. Figure 2: Khvay Samnang, Newspaper Man, 2011. Digital C Print, and single-channel digital video. Courtesy of the artist and SA SA BASSAC. 96 UDAYA, Journal of 12, 2014 UDAYA, Khmer Studies, UDAYA, Journal of 12, 2014 UDAYA, Khmer Studies, “Performance is Contemporary:” Performance and its Documentation in Visual Art in Cambodia These two examples are introduced as indicative of the breadth of the spectrum of approaches to performance and its documentation in the practices of visual artists in contemporary Cambodia.2 In this essay, further examples of works by Lim Sokchanlina, Amy Lee Sanford, Anida Yoeu Ali (讶នី⮶ យឿ 讶លី) and others will be also be discussed in some detail, informed by my ongoing dialogues with many of these artists.3 While attitudes to live audiences and recording technologies clearly vary, in this essay I argue that what is consistent in performances by these artists is the central presence of documentation. Of course, an apparent ubiquity of digital technologies is by no means unique to Cambodia, and documentation of performance is arguably becoming the norm in many disparate locations. Yet what is especially noteworthy about the Cambodian case is that performance by visual artists is a comparatively recent phenomenon, arising within the past decade, approximately concurrent with the mass availability and adoption of digital technologies, especially photography and film. I will argue that this centrality of documentation is due to four, often overlapping, factors. Firstly, that artists are chiefly exposed to international performances not live but in the form of their documentation; secondly, that documentation renders performance legible as visual art in the contemporary context; thirdly, that photo- and video-documenting is an automatic and everyday activity in urban Cambodia for those with access to the technology; and finally, that the format of some performances is actually shaped by the apparatuses used to record their documentation. Moreover, I will propose that these performance works display, with very few exceptions, very little connection to existing systems or traditions of performance, including of Cambodian lkhon (ល្ខោន, “theater”) or rapā╕ (រ厶ំ, “dance”). Performances by visual artists are fundamentally experimental creations that are almost always conceived, and received, without reference to existing theatrical or choreographic conventions.4 Rather than engaging with performance traditions, 2 Recognizing the historically contingent nature of the term “Cambodian artist” (and its constituent components), I consider the practices of both lifelong residents and returning diaspora. 3 I draw on long-term conversations with artists in part out of necessity, given the paucity of written and archival sources on their practice, but also out of a commitment to privileging the perspectives of artists and local audiences. My use of what may be termed a partly ethnographic methodology is informed both by Taylor, “The Southeast Asian Art Historian as Ethnographer?”��, and also by conversations with several artists themselves. For example, Khvay Sam- nang has said to me that “if you want to know, you have to come, and not just talk, but enjoy! And spend time, not just one hour or one day.” Khvay Samnang, conversation with the author, 2013. Unless otherwise noted, all subsequent references to Khvay Samnang are from conversations with the author during 2012, 2013 and 2014. Where necessary, all translation is by the author. Taylor notes that “Historical records are held in living archives, in artists’ memories” (“Southeast Asian Art Historian,” 481). I am interested in these “records” and “memories” but also in the testimony of audiences, including of artists as audiences. My background, which includes training in the disciplines of art history and cultural studies as well as work as a curator, encourages me to look also to the reception of culture: to the “historical records” held in the memories of theatre-goers and gallery visitors and other publics, as well as to new forms of “archives,” including those created in online contexts such as Facebook. My practice as a curator working with several of the visual artists I will discuss below has allowed me the opportunity to have long-term conversations about their work that have included many glimpses of the processes of creation as well as exhibition. My interpretation of the work of the artists discussed here tends to be informed both by the artists themselves, and by their audiences. I gratefully attribute many of my thoughts here to conversations with artists and audiences in Cambodia: conversations had in my capacity as doctoral researcher, as curator, and as friend —and frequently as all three. Much of this research has been, in part, a collaborative activity. 4 While this is the dominant tendency, it is of course not true of all performances by visual artists. For example, most “live painting” events, while perhaps not narrative in the usual sense, still has a clear sense of progression from begin- 97 Roger Nelson their central concern is with documentation. The self-consciously experimental nature of these performances is in contrast to many contemporary performances for the stage. This will be demonstrated through discussion of the choreography of Sophiline Cheam Shapiro (សុភីលីន ᾶម 羶徶រ៉ូ) and Emmanuèle Phuon, and the theater of Jean-Baptiste Phou. Unlike most performances by visual artists, these performances for the stage engage with codified traditions as a key source of meaning. Yet despite this difference, these two genres share many other qualities, including a mutual dependence between live and mediatized forms, and a simultaneously national and transnational attitude that, I propose, may be considered an example of cosmopolitanism or “cosmopatriotism.”5 As

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