Essay
Bodies of Occupation: Conversation with Khvay Samnang and Vuth Lyno
This conversation with artists Khvay Samnang and Vuth Lyno will explore different forms of corporeal occupation, resistance and transformation in Cambodia (including political violence, extractivism and international justice). Vuth Lyno, 25 (2018), courtesy of the artist. Participants Pamela Nguyen Corey researches and teaches modern and contemporary art history, focusing on Southeast Asia within broader transnational Asian and global contexts. She received her BA (Studio Art) from the University of California, Irvine, and her PhD (History of Art and Visual Studies) from Cornell University. She will join Fulbright University Vietnam in January 2021 from SOAS University of London, where she has been teaching since receiving her PhD in 2015. She is the author of The City in Time: Contemporary Art and Urban Form in Vietnam and Cambodia (University of Washington Press, 2021), and her writing is featured in numerous academic journals, exhibition catalogues, and platforms for artistic and cultural commentary. She is a guest co-editor of “Voice as Form”, a special issue of Oxford Art Journal (2020), which introduces material from her new research into the use of voice and sound in contemporary artworks from Southeast Asia and its diasporas. Her research has been supported by the Fulbright-Hays Program and the Center for Khmer Studies, and most recently by the British Academy for a Newton Mobility Grant project entitled “Constructing Decolonial Art Histories of Southeast Asia” in collaboration with the University of Malaya. Khvay Samnang (b. 1982, Svay Rieng) graduated from the Painting Department at the Royal University of Fine Art in Phnom Penh, where he lives and works today. Khvay’s multidisciplinary practice offers new views on historic and current events as well as on traditional cultural rituals using humorous symbolic gestures. In his work, which includes all media, he focuses on the humanitarian and ecological impacts of colonialism and globalization. The development of each body of work is based on thorough research and investigation of local specificities, structures and conditions. Khvay is a founding member of Stiev Selapak, an art collective dedicated to reappraising and remembering Cambodian history and exploring continuities in visual practices disrupted by civil war and the Khmer Rouge regime. In 2010-11, Stiev Selapak set up two nonprofit art spaces in Phnom Penh: Sa Sa Art Projects, for experimental residencies, knowledge-sharing and community-based programmes; and SA SA BASSAC – a gallery, resource centre and reading room. Khvay teaches Contemporary Art Class to emerging Cambodian artists under the programme of Sa Sa Art Projects. In 2016 he was nominated for the Future Generation Art Prize, Ukraine. In 2015 he was nominated for Prix Pictet Prize; AIGA AGO Photography Prize Long List, Canada; the Sovereign Asian Art Prize, Hong Kong; and Prudential Eye Awards Best Emerging Artist in Asia Using Photography, Singapore. In 2014-15 he was a grant holder of KfW Stiftung for the 12-month programme “Artists in Residence” in collaboration with Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin. In 2017 he was invited by KfW Stiftung as an alumnus to participate in a think tank with the world-renowned dancer and choreographer Akram Khan. In 2019 he was artist in residence at Delfina Foundation, London. Khvay has exhibited at numerous art centres, biennales and galleries worldwide, including Haus der Kunst in Munich, Orange County Museum of Art in California, Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Jeu de Paume in Paris, CAPC in Bordeaux, Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan, DOCUMENTA 14, Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok, Biennale of Sydney, Kadist Foundation in San Francisco, Singapore Biennale, and ZKM | Center of Art and Media in Karlsruhe (his website). Annie Jael Kwan is an independent curator and researcher whose exhibition-making, programming, publication and teaching practice is located at the intersection of contemporary art, art history and cultural activism, with interest in archives, histories, feminist, queer and alternative knowledges, collective practices, and solidarity. As co-director of Something Human, a curatorial initiative, she has presented live art projects across the UK and Europe, and launched the the pioneering Southeast Asia Performance Collection (SAPC)with over 27000 digital items that represent 50 artists from the region at the Live Art Development Agency during the 2017 M.A.P. (Movement x Archive x Performance) project. In 2018, she curated the exhibition and public programme, UnAuthorised Medium, that explored artistic responses to the “archive” featuring thirteen artists working in relation to Southeast Asia at Framer Framed, Netherlands. In 2019, she co-curated the Archive-in-Residence “Southeast Asia Performance Collection” exhibition, along with the Pathways of Performativity in Contemporary Southeast Asian Art conference at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany. Kwan leads Asia-Art-Activism (AAA), an interdisciplinary, intergenerational research network that has been in residence at Raven Row since 2018. In 2019, she curated the live art programme, Being Present, at the Manchester Art Gallery, and its digital adaption for the Paul Mellon Centre’s British Art Studies Issue 13; in 2020, she led and co-curated the expansive digital programme, Till We Meet Again IRL, and in 2021, launched Tools to Transform (co-initiated with Joon Lynn Goh), a project focused on creating resources for Asian and diaspora organising that received the European Cultural Foundation’s Culture of Solidarity grant in 2020. For the 2021 London, Asia, Art, Worlds conference convened by the Paul Mellon Centre’s Studies in British Art, she curated the online programme, QueerAsias, and was part of the curatorial committee for the Korean Cultural Centre UK’s A Screening Room. She is the instigating council member of Asia Forum, along with Hammad Nasar, Dr Ming Tiampo and John Tain, that was launched on 14 May with a programme featuring Patrick Flores, Ho Tzu Nyen, Anna Tsing, Lantian Xie and Shilpa Gupta. Asia Forum is scheduled for a digital gathering in October 2021, and a one-day programme at the Venice Biennale on 23 April 2022 at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia. She was the co-editor of Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia’s guest issue: Archives. She is a recipient of a Diverse Actions Leadership Award 2019, and currently teaches Critical Studies at Central St Martins, University of the Arts, London, and co-teaches Writing and Curating at KASK, School of Art, in Ghent, Belgium. Vuth Lyno (b. 1982, Phnom Penh) is an artist, curator and educator interested in space, cultural history and knowledge production. His artworks often engage with micro and overlooked histories, notions of community, place-making, and production of social relations. He works across various media, including photography, video, sculpture, light, and sound. He often constructs architectural bodies as situations for interaction. He introduces human stories and knowledge within these installations by drawing on a wide range of materials such as original interviews, artifacts, and newly made objects. His artistic and curatorial practice is participatory in nature, engaging mutual and communal learning, experimentation, and aims to share multiple voices in the production of meaning. He believes in the potency of collectivity, storytelling, and the agency of cultural objects as potential pathways to reimage our sociality. Alongside his individual artistic practice, he is also a member of Stiev Selapak collective which founded and co-runs Sa Sa Art Projects, a long-term initiative committed to the development of contemporary visual arts landscape in Cambodia. Together with the collective, he teaches, initiates, and innovates art programs facilitating a growing and more critically conscious community. Vuth has presented his artworks in Cambodian and international venues, including at major exhibitions and festivals such as the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Biennale of Sydney, Singapore International Festival of Arts, and Gwangju Biennale. His artworks have appeared at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei; Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; Metropolitan Museum of Manila; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; the National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta; Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou; Osage Gallery, Hong Kong; and Chiang Mai City Arts & Cultural Centre. He holds a Master of Art History from the State University of New York, Binghamton, New York, a Fulbright Fellowship (2013-2015), and a Master of International Development from RMIT University, Melbourne, supported by the Australian Endeavour Award (2008-2009) (his website).
Read More
Page
COTCA
Cultures of Occupation in Twentieth Century Asia (COTCA) is a European Research Council-supported project (funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme: Grant Number 682081) which explores how foreign occupation, in various forms, has influenced cultural expression in East and Southeast Asia in the modern era. This site is home to COTCA’s Digital Archive. The archive holds primary source materials collected in various archives and libraries around the world, and organised according to case studies undertaken under the COTCA Project. The three case studies which are currently “live” are (i) Japanese-occupied China; (ii) the Malayan Emergency and (iii) the Spatial Politics of Identity in Cambodia. Follow the links below to these case studies. Data from other case studies will be uploaded in due course. We will also be adding multi-language functions to the site in the near future.
Read More
Featured Item
Villagers and soldiers pointing at poster
This (probably staged) photograph shows a group of villagers and soldiers reading an illustrated, A0-size propaganda poster celebrating the Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation (KUFNS, also known as FUNSK) [Front or Renakse]. The image provides a clear view of the poster and the photos on it. The poster’s title reads: “Fight for the Front” (or, more literally, “rush and struggle under the front’s flag”). The photos on the poster have captions in Khmer. One of the older villagers holds the upper right-hand corner of the poster. He has a folded poster in his other hand. Next to him, a young boy points his finger at the top picture, which shows the founding of the Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation in Kratie in December 1978. A female soldier points her finger at the caption below the picture. This photograph is part of the collection held by the Agence Khmère de Presse (AKP) and Cambodia’s Ministry of Information. This collection, which documents the early years of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea as photographed by the Vietnamese and a small team of Cambodian photographers, has not yet been classified or indexed.
Read More
Featured Item
Motel in Sihanoukville
This modern-style motel pavilion is low, with two stone architectural elements and a seven-branch sculpture to the side. The photograph is part of the collection that was donated to the National Archives of Cambodia from the Library of the Royal University of Fine Arts by Darryl Collins and Helen Grant Ross in 2003. The collection was used by Collins and Ross for their research into urbanisation. The images were probably originally used to mount the Sangkum Reastr Niyum Permanent Exhibition at the Exhibition Hall, Bassac area, Phnom Penh. An image of the same pavilion was used to illustrate an article entitled “Discovering the Cambodian Riviera” in the monthly pictorial Kambuja no. 22 (January 1967): 44. The motel was described in that pictorial as “grand luxe” with a daily price of USD15.
Read More
Item
Map of display of Soviet military equipment at Win-Win Monument
This photograph shows a map of the open-air display of Soviet military equipment that is located on the southern side of the Win-Win Monument complex. The Win-Win Monument complex – photographed here in January 2020 – was inaugurated in December 2018 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the end of the post-Democratic Kampuchea civil war, with the final defection of the remaining Khmer Rouge factions, thanks to the DIFID policy (“Divide, Isolate, Finish, Integrate, Develop”) also known as the “Win Win” policy of Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Read More
Item
Win-Win Monument bas-relief
This photograph provides a view of the bas-relief on the 117-metre-long engraved base of the Win-Win Monument. It depicts the rebirth of Cambodia after 1979 with different sectors being represented (religion, agriculture, transport, etc.). Hun Sen is featured in the middle, and is larger in sizes than other figures. The Win-Win Monument complex – photographed here in January 2020 – was inaugurated in December 2018 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the end of the post-Democratic Kampuchea civil war, with the final defection of the remaining Khmer Rouge factions, thanks to the DIFID policy (“Divide, Isolate, Finish, Integrate, Develop”) also known as the “Win Win” policy of Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Read More
Case Study
Spatial Politics of Identity in Cambodia
Read More
Item
民國新政
這張海報極可確定於1937年12月為中華國民國臨時政府成立而設計。北京的升日和城門發射光芒的設計理念顯然讓人聯想到滿洲國的宣傳刊物。值得注意的是，當中參考了殘破的國民黨黨旗之白日標誌。取而代之的「五星旗」由1937年成立的中華民國臨時政府所復甦，象徵著其早期的臨時政府，質疑國民黨的理念，以崇尚較為保守的儒家思想。又請注意其中這個政權對中國其餘地區亦充滿野心的設計（這名男子插上國旗象徵征服全中國，而非僅中華民國臨時政府實際統治的華北地區。
Read More
Item
簽署日本－滿州國－中國聯合宣言
現場兩側站著幾名隨從情況下，滿州國駐汪精衛國民政府大使臧式毅（坐在圖左）、日本駐汪精衛國民政府大使阿部信行（坐在圖右）、以及汪精衛（坐在圖中）於1940年11月30日簽署日本－滿州國－中國聯合宣言，汪精衛國民政府透過該宣言承認滿州國。該宣言附加於中日基本關係條約，日本透過該條約承認汪精衛國民政府。此二份文件皆於汪精衛國民政府南京綜合大樓簽署。日本、中國，以及滿州國的旗幟均掛在三人背後的牆上。
Read More
Item
《華南畫報》封面，1941年1月
這張封面照片出自《華南畫報》3.1（1941年1月）。這張照片經過事先安排，照片中運用了日本於日據中國的標準宣傳理念，李如日本和中國女子相處融洽。這個理念源自於滿州國的宣傳理念以及「五族協和」，還有女性化日據中國的形象。注意日本女子是如何塑造的略高於她的中國同伴。
Read More
Item
《新中華画報》封面，1942年12月
這張封面照片出自《新中華画報》封面4.12（1942年12月），封面為李麗華的光刻印刷影像。李麗華是上海戰爭期間數一數二受歡迎的影視名人，儘管她的穿著和公眾形象效仿好萊塢明星，其仍受到當時日佔政權時期親政府媒體的青睞。《新中華画報》封面是雙語（中英）刊物，由日佔時期新聞工作者伍麟趾於1939年至1944年時期在上海出版，並發送至中國及東南亞地區。
Read More
Item
進入汪精衛國民政府總部
1940年11月，日本和中國士兵看守通往南京國民政府禮堂的主要入口。門上方是一塊匾額，由國民政府（非汪精衛國民政府）主席林森所提之：「忠孝、仁愛、信義、和平。值得注意的是當中「純正」的中國國民黨黨旗（為有1940年春天在日本脅迫下汪精衛國民政府附加上的黃色三角旗）在此處飄揚。