Creator
Lim Sokchanlina
Photographer and video artist from Prey Veng, based in Phnom Penh, whose work records how Cambodia's land and society are changing.
Lim Sokchanlina is a Cambodian artist who works in photography, video, installation and performance.[1][2] He was born in Prey Veng province in 1987.[1][3] He was one of the founders of the artist collective Stiev Selapak, and his work looks at social, political, economic and environmental change in Cambodia and its ties to the wider world.[2][4]
Early life and training
Lim took a bachelor's degree in economics at Norton University in Phnom Penh in 2010.[4] Partly under the influence of his uncle, a well-known painter, he joined a photography class run by a French photographer who was a friend of his uncle's, and his interest grew while he studied economics.[5] He then spent some time as a newspaper photographer. In Aya Kimura's account, photographing officials and conferences bored him, and he looked for another way to show society as it is.[5] The Singapore Art Museum says he trained as a photographer and documentary filmmaker after his economics studies.[3]
Stiev Selapak and Sa Sa
Lim is a founding member of Stiev Selapak (Art Rebels), formed in 2007, whose members opened Sa Sa Art Gallery (2009 to 2010), Sa Sa Art Projects (from 2010) and SA SA BASSAC (from 2011).[2] He also helped set up Analogue Prints Laboratory, which the Singapore Art Museum calls the first darkroom in Phnom Penh open to the public.[3][1]
Work
In Kimura's reading, Lim starts from an actual place and either inserts an object into it or removes something that belongs there.[5]
- Rising Tonle Sap (2012): blocks of ice floating on the Tonle Sap lake, as a warning about global warming.[5]
- National Road No. 5 (2015): a series of nine photographs of houses along the highway, their fronts cut away or boarded up for the road's widening with Japanese government funds. There are no people in the pictures. The Singapore Art Museum, which holds the series, reads it as a portrait of the ties between Cambodia and Japan, and of a generation watching the country change.[3][5]
- Wrapped Future II (from 2017): a sky-blue metal fence built across a lotus field, blocking the view of the field. Kimura reads it as a sign of what fast economic growth can hide.[5] An earlier Wrapped Future series dates from 2009 to 2012.[4]
- Letter to the Sea (2019): a video in which Lim stands on the seabed off Koh Koot island, near the sea border with Thailand, and reads a letter he wrote from interviews with Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand. He could not swim and practiced diving for a week before filming. The reading takes 17 minutes and 35 seconds, the time his air allowed for the two pages.[5]
Exhibitions and residencies
- Solo: Urban Street Night Club (2014) and National Road Number 5 (2016), Art Stage Singapore.[4]
- Group: Sunshower: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, and Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (2017); Biennale of Sydney, with Sa Sa Art Projects (2018); 6th Singapore Biennale (2019); 8th Asian Art Biennial, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (2021 to 2022); documenta 15, Kassel (2022); Mchas Teuk Mchas Dei (Master of Lands and Waters), Sa Sa Art Projects (2022).[4][2]
- Residencies: NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Tentacles in Bangkok and Tokyo Arts and Space (2018); Fukuoka Asian Art Museum and Lostgens' in Kuala Lumpur (2019).[2][4]
References 5
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Aura Asia Art Project, Lim Sokchanlina (undated)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Nguyen Art Foundation, Lim Sokchanlina (undated)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Singapore Art Museum, National Road No. 5 (undated)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Tokyo Arts and Space, LIM Sokchanlina (February 1, 2019)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Aura Asia Art Project, Aya Kimura, Lim Sokchanlina: Communicate as It Is, Fusion of Reality and Unreality (undated)
Know something we're missing? Send a tip