Logo of Phnom Penh Post newspaper Phnom Penh Post - An artist’s silent exploration of land and sea

An artist’s silent exploration of land and sea

A series of stills from Khvay Samnang and Nget Rady’s film Where Is My Land?. Photo supplied
A series of stills from Khvay Samnang and Nget Rady’s film Where Is My Land? Photo supplied

An artist’s silent exploration of land and sea

Thirty-five-year-old Cambodian film director Khvay Samnang is among five artists who will be presenting films during a one-time event at Bophana Center next Thursday called Forces and Volumes. Organised by the arts organisation Sa Sa Bassac, the films are largely wordless and each stand on their own as essays.

Samnang’s film, Where is My Land?, which he co-directed with Nget Rady, is an exploration of how land and water are being used in Cambodia.

“I want to show real social problems and disasters, which can cause people to lose their lives,” Samnang says. “I went to film in locations that have faced natural disasters or risked destruction from development, [like] on the Mekong River and Boeung Kak lake.”

A series of stills from Khvay Samnang and Nget Rady’s film Where Is My Land?

According to May Adadol Ingawanij, while exploring social issues surrounding land and natural resources, the show is also an artistic exploration of the role of voice-overs in film, or the lack thereof.

“There tends to be an assumption that essay films use a lot of voice-over in order to convey the thoughts and feelings of the filmmaker,” he says. “Yet the works by the four artists have a common feature in that they turn away from the voice-over. So I also wanted the programme to ask whether ‘films/videos that think’ need to do so via speaking.”

In all four films, Ingawanji says, the artists study “the way human conflicts and power shape land and water”. Despite the heavy subject matter, there are glimmers of hope.

“What I admire very much about the four works is the way they imply the persistence of that which resists man-made destructive forces,” he says.

A series of stills from Khvay Samnang and Nget Rady’s film Where Is My Land?

Samnang, Rady and artist Nguyen Trinh Thi each explore land and water issues in Cambodia and Vietnam, while artists Charles Lim and Taiki Sakpisit look closely at urban challenges. “Charles’s work … is to do with the way the hyper-capitalist development of Singapore is drastically changing the boundary and definition of land and sea, and in Taiki’s case, the city spaces of Bangkok is one haunted by its cycles of national political catastrophes.”

During the event, Samnang and Thi will join Ingawanij for a conversation in English, with a Khmer translation.

Forces and Volumes will show on January 19 at 6:30pm at Bophana Center.

Additional reporting by James Reddick

MOST VIEWED

  • Wing Bank opens new branch in front of Orkide The Royal along Street 2004

    Wing Bank celebrates first anniversary as commercial bank with launch of brand-new branch. One year since officially launching with a commercial banking licence, Wing Bank on March 14 launched a new branch in front of Orkide The Royal along Street 2004. The launch was presided over by

  • Siem Reap airport to close after new one opens

    After the new Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport (SAI) opens in October, the existing complex serving the northwestern province will be “completely closed”, according to State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA) spokesman Sin Chansereyvutha. SAI developer Angkor International Airport Investment (Cambodia) Co Ltd (AIAI) last month

  • Girl from Stung Meanchey dump now college grad living in Australia

    After finishing her foundational studies at Trinity College and earning a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Melbourne in 2022, Ron Sophy, a girl who once lived at the Stung Meanchey garbage dump and scavenged for things to sell, is now working at a private

  • Rare plant fetches high prices from Thai, Chinese

    Many types of plants found in Cambodia are used as traditional herbs to treat various diseases, such as giloy or guduchi (Tinospora cordifolia) or aromatic/sand ginger (Kaempferia galangal) or rough cocklebur (Xanthium Strumartium). There is also a plant called coral, which is rarely grown

  • Ministry using ChatGPT AI to ‘ease workload’; Khmer version planned

    The Digital Government Committee is planning to make a Khmer language version of popular artificial intelligence (AI) technology ChatGPT available to the public in the near future, following extensive testing. On March 9, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications revealed that it has been using the

  • Cambodia returns 15M Covid jabs to China

    Prime Minister Hun Sen said Cambodia will return 15 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to China for donation to other countries. The vaccines in question were ordered but had not yet arrived in Cambodia. While presiding over the Ministry of Health’s annual meeting held on