Organization
Stiev Selapak
Stiev Selapak (Art Rebels) is an artist collective in Phnom Penh, founded in 2007 by six Cambodian artists and photographers.[1][2] Its members opened two artist-run spaces for experimental art: Sa Sa Art Gallery in 2009 and Sa Sa Art Projects in 2010.[1][3][4]
Founding
The founders were Heng Ravuth, Khvay Samnang, Kong Vollak, Lim Sokchanlina, Vandy Rattana and Vuth Lyno.[1] Art Republik gives the name's loose meaning as "the art rebels".[1] The six met in a 2006 class taught by the French photographer Stephane Janine and then exhibited together. Khvay has said that Vandy, who then understood photography better than the others, proposed that they form a group.[1] In Lim's words, no other art collective of the kind existed in Cambodia when they started in 2007.[1] The University of Warwick Art Collection describes Stiev Selapak as an activist collective that set up workshops, residencies and joint art projects.[2]
Sa Sa Art Gallery and SA SA BASSAC
In the early years the members held day jobs to pay for their art.[1] In 2009, with help from Baitong Restaurant, they opened Sa Sa Art Gallery in a small wing of the restaurant on Street 360.[1] Art Encounters calls it Phnom Penh's first artist-run exhibition space.[4] Lim recalled that young artists could then show their work only at the French Institute, Java Café and Meta House. The gallery gave young Cambodian artists exhibitions and built a following among Cambodians and foreign residents.[1]
The gallery later joined Bassac Art Projects, run by the curator Erin Gleeson, to form SA SA BASSAC, a gallery and resource center for contemporary visual culture from Cambodia.[1] Framer Framed and the Aura Asia Art Project date SA SA BASSAC to 2011.[5][6] In Lim's account, Gleeson took on the writing, management and communication, and the artists did the technical work of hanging shows.[1]
Sa Sa Art Projects
The collective founded Sa Sa Art Projects in 2010 because Cambodia had no not-for-profit, artist-run space open to varied and experimental work.[3][6] Its home was the White Building, a social housing block of 1963 in the Bassac riverfront district planned under the architect Vann Molyvann. The building was torn down in 2017.[3][6] Its work takes in exhibitions, residencies and classes in contemporary art.[1][6] Lim explained the residencies as a way to bring foreign artists to Cambodia, since it was hard for Cambodian artists to travel abroad.[1] The Biennale of Sydney's 2018 profile names Khvay Samnang, Lim Sokchanlina and Vuth Lyno as its active co-founders.[3]
Khvay has said the group began its own art classes because Cambodian schools taught none. He and Heng taught drawing and practical skills, and art history classes followed. Some former students took what they learned into fashion, film, music and set design.[1]
Sa Sa Art Projects keeps the White Building Art Archive, an online collection of images and recordings by students of art and media and by people who once lived in the building.[3] At the 21st Biennale of Sydney in 2018 it showed videos from the archive with Khvay Samnang's photographs Human Nature, Vuth Lyno's installation Light Voice and Pen Sereypagna's architectural study Genealogy of Bassac.[3]
Lim has said the members do not make art together for now, though they might in the future; as a group they curate and run events.[1]
References 6
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 Art Republik via Luxuo, Naima Morelli, Rebels at Heart: The Story of Cambodian Rebel Supergroup Stiev Selapak (May 13, 2018)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 University of Warwick Art Collection, Vandy Rattana (undated)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Biennale of Sydney, Sa Sa Art Projects, 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Art Encounters Biennial, Vandy Rattana (2019)
- ↑ Framer Framed, Vandy Rattana (undated)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Aura Asia Art Project, Kazue Suzuki and Yuto Yabumoto, Overview: History of Contemporary Art in Cambodia (undated)