Creator
Khvay Samnang
Artist from Svay Rieng, based in Phnom Penh, whose photographs, videos and performances deal with land, ritual and the effects of colonialism and globalization.
Khvay Samnang is a Cambodian artist who works in photography, video, performance and sculpture.[1] Born in Svay Rieng in 1982, he studied painting at the Royal University of Fine Arts and lives and works in Phnom Penh.[2][3] He was one of the founders of the artist collective Stiev Selapak.[4][5]
Training and Stiev Selapak
Noorderlicht dates his graduation from the painting department of the Royal University of Fine Arts to 2006. He has also been an artist in residence at Tokyo Wonder Site in Japan.[3] Stiev Selapak, the collective he helped found, set out to reappraise Cambodian history and to take up visual traditions broken by the civil war and the Khmer Rouge.[4][5] In 2010 and 2011 its members opened two nonprofit spaces in Phnom Penh: Sa Sa Art Projects, for residencies, education and collaborative projects, and the gallery SA SA BASSAC, which also kept a reading room and resource library and closed in 2018.[1][4] Khvay has taught a contemporary art class for young Cambodian artists in the Sa Sa Art Projects program.[4]
Work
The Delfina Foundation describes his practice as a look at past and present events and at traditional rituals through humorous, symbolic gestures, with a focus on what colonialism and globalization have done to people and the environment. Each series grows out of long research in a particular place, and he works directly with the communities involved.[4][1]
For Human Nature (2010 to 2011), he photographed residents of Phnom Penh's White Building in their own apartments, each wearing a mask they had chosen from ones he made out of various materials. The Angkor Photo Festival quotes his reason: with so much outside interest in the building and its people, "even though we are innocent, we may also need a mask."[2]
Preah Kunlong (The Way of the Spirit, 2016 to 2017) is a two-channel video about the Chong, an indigenous people of the Areng Valley in Koh Kong province. Khvay lived with the Chong community on and off over a year. The Helsinki Biennial, which showed the work in 2021, presents it as a study of people and nature set against Cambodia's environmental crisis and the land and resource policy that threatens indigenous communities.[5]
Popil (2018), a dance work built around the symbolism of the dragon, was commissioned by Haus der Kunst in Munich, which showed it in its Capsule series from January to June 2019.[6] During a residency at the Delfina Foundation in London in September and October 2019, he planned to develop it further as a performance.[4]
Exhibitions
- Solo: Human Nature, Tomio Koyama Gallery, Singapore (2014); Rubber Man, Jeu de Paume, Paris, and CAPC, Bordeaux (2015); Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara (2016); Where is my land?, Sa Sa Art Projects, Phnom Penh (2017); Capsule 10, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2019).[2][4][6]
- Group: 4th Singapore Biennale (2013); documenta 14, Athens and Kassel (2017); Biennale of Sydney (2018); Taipei Biennial (2018); Helsinki Biennial (2021).[1][2][5]
The Delfina Foundation lists nominations for the Prix Pictet and the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in 2015, and for the Future Generation Art Prize in 2016.[4]
References 6
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Aura Asia Art Project, Khvay Samnang (undated)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Angkor Photo Festival, Human Nature: Khvay Samnang (undated)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Noorderlicht, About Samnang Khvay (undated)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 Delfina Foundation, Khvay Samnang (2019)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Helsinki Biennial, Samnang Khvay (2021)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 e-flux, Raphaela Vogel and Khvay Samnang: Capsule 09/10, Haus der Kunst (January 25, 2019)
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