Catalogue Than Sok "Les Formes de l'Eau"

Srie Bun (2016) also restages Buddhist material culture. Casually hanging from
nails in the wall at even height are five clerical garments of different colors
belonging to Maha Nikaya and Thammayut sects of Cambodia’s Theravada
Buddhist system in which color signifies rank. The Buddhist monk, wearing
robes, is believed to delineate a merit field comparable to the fertile rice
field, where seeds are sown for reaping. Than questions the robe’s symbolic
power atop mortal male bodies (in Cambodia, females are restricted from
ordination), and if peace can be advanced when hierarchical notions of
sect and rank are maintained at the moral core of society. These works, as if
conceptual microscopes and introspective mirrors, offer layered experiences
and meanings, chances for close looking into constructions of power, belief,
and relations amongst human and more-than-human beings.
Further towards Kbach Teuk’s becoming is understanding kbach itself as a
language of mimicry, with strong ties to pedagogical histories and identity
formation in Cambodia. Kbach, in Khmer language, has many meanings,
referring to specific gestures in dance and theater (kbach robam), particular
techniques in Khmer boxing (kbach kun), or a vast vocabulary of ornamental
forms that decorate, and at times divine, objects and architectural surfaces
throughout Cambodia. The latter kbach was the focus of preeminent Reyum
Institute of Art and Culture’s (1999-2010) iconic publication, Kbach: A Study
of Khmer Ornament (2005).¹ For educators, researchers, artists, artisans and
the general public, Reyum’s half-decade long study brought greater legibility
through historicity and technical documentation to these ubiquitous forms
across time. The study revealed how kbach has mimicked forms primarily
belonging to nature, how they are symmetrically divided, meaningfully
embellished, and how elder’s methodologies of understanding and creating
have been passed on generationally through pedagogical mimicry via
apprenticeship. Examples of core kbach forms include a buffalo tooth, which
inspired a stele-like kbach, and a fish tooth – a similar, sharper form – both
commonly seen repeated in the designs of wooden fences and overhangs
in traditional rural homes, or as engraved bands around royal silver bowls,
jewelry, and a host of other applications. The kbach of a lotus petal, Bodhi
leaf, a snail, a stamen, and so many more, are not only represented as core,
basic forms, but are given varying line treatments, volume, and importantly,
embellishments that also derived from nature, such as fire (kbach phni pleung),
or intertwining vines (kbach phni voal).
¹ Chan Vitharin and Preap Chanmara. 2005. Kbach: A Study of Khmer Ornament. Editors Ly Daravuth and Ingrid Muan. Reyum
Publishing, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
15