Catalogue Than Sok "Les Formes de l'Eau"

mimicry it was not to reify associated periods of power, rather her commitment
to cultural preservation was imbricated with responsibility as a survivor of the
Khmer Rouge regime which killed 90% of educated citizens including artisans
and artists, between 1975-1979. While some surviving artists’ cultural revival
efforts became tied rigidly to the past, Ms. Saree’s sense of responsibility
embraced culture as fluid and changing, engaging with curiosity around
culture’s representational constructions.
Ms. Saree initiated pedagogical practices I refer to as critical mimicry. A
poignant example of this was an assignment critical of the limitations and
repetitive application of five kbach teuk she remembers being taught, and
which she later located in both traditional and modern temple murals dating
from the mid-18th century onwards.² This visual representation equated
underrepresentation, specifically given water’s important role in Hindu
narratives which constitute a primary subject matter in many Cambodian
Buddhist temple murals and bas reliefs. As a volunteer at Reyum Institute and
Reyum Art School (2005-2007), I began to look more closely at representations
of water in general and especially across Asia. Initial comparisons confirmed
East Asian imaging traditions, from woodblock to ink painting, embraced a
landscape genre that honored water as subject itself, as well as in relation to
elements such as wind and light, such as in Ma Yuan (1160 – 1225)’s Water
Album. Representational traditions in Cambodia involving water have a greater
connection to South Asian practices, in which water has been cast primarily
as scenography; functionary to human and mythical characters’ dramas in
moralist narratives. Ms. Saree asked, what if the forms representing water could
more closely reflect the relationship with water’s narrative application? Should
proportions and compositions be restructured to give more space to water
as subject or character itself? How does water behave in its different forms –
pond, puddle, stream, river, marsh, sea, and so on, and in relation to different
phenomenon like gravity or elements like air? How to create embellishments
to these forms and behaviors? Her assignment would require aptitude of
students’ steady line work – its physical and mental demands, but not their
copyist skills. Rather she assigned textual and visual revisiting of inheritance
and subjective experience through observation of water as a methodology to
spur imagination and innovation of new kbach teuk.
2
San Phalla. 2007. Wat Painting in Cambodia. Reyum Publishing, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
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