Evenings with Khvay Samnang

This programme consists of a screening of two works by multi-disciplinary artist Khvay Samnang—Preah Kunlong (2016–2017) and Where is My Land? (2014–2022)—followed by a live dance performance by choreographers Mot Pharan and Sot Sovanndy from Khvay’s film Popil (2018), and a dialogue with the artist and dancers moderated by Gallery curator Roger Nelson. 

PREAH KUNLONG

Cambodia | No dialogue | 2016–2017 | 18 min 43 sec | PG

Commissioned by documenta 14, Preah Kunlong was made over 16 months. The film was the result of artist Khvay Samnang’s engagement with the Indigenous Chong people in the Areng Valley in the southwestern province of Cambodia. Through observation and participation, he grew to understand their connection to their land, and how its spiritual terrain is mapped via ancestral and oral histories, and enacted through the body.

Using raw vines found in the valley that are normally used for making fish traps, Khvay worked with a small group of local weavers to construct sculptures of eleven animals that reference Chong totems. Chong totems are specific beings honoured in particular families for having once brought an ancestor to water in a time of need. These sculptures also served as intricate masks that Khvay’s long-term collaborator and acclaimed choreographer, Nget Rady, activates in performances across the Areng’s waterfalls and forests. His performance is captured in this multi-channel video work.

As a form of intervention, Khvay’s work is especially poignant as this film was made at a time when state and corporate interests were endangering the existence of the area—the largest remaining expanse of rainforest in Southeast Asia. The government had planned to build a hydroelectric dam on the Areng River, but eventually suspended the project.

 

WHERE IS MY LAND?

Cambodia | No dialogue | 2014–2022 | 23 min 03 sec | PG

In Cambodia, pumping sand from rivers for private development has been identified as a primary cause of erosion. It is also a serious source of environmental harm, resulting in forced eviction and even death. With few options for compensation, and little if any access to the luxury developments for which the sand is being mined, many are left wondering: where is my land?

Showing at Painting with Light for the first time is a single-channel version of Where Is My Land?, a mesmerising video work showing Nget Rady performing at three sites in Phnom Penh. These sites are: the remnants of a lake that has been filled in with sand by private property developers and with the exclusive Peng Huo housing estate visible in the background, the ruins of a destroyed house in a severely eroded section of a riverbank along the Mekong River, and the sand-pumping pipes in front of a Cham fishing village, with a luxury hotel looming.

While Rady is classically trained in the lkhon khol tradition, there is hardly any trace of it in his performance here as he mostly improvises in response to these altered environments. Between close-ups of Rady’s movements and wide-angle shots of the unnatural landscape, a displaced, disturbed, and desperate figure emerges.