The Best of Cambodia & Laos

88
PHNOM PENH
5
SHOPPING & GALLERIES
Munitions into Art
As armed conflict drew to a close at the end of the last century, Cambodia
remained awash with weapons of war. Even the motodups were often armed
back then. Programs to disarm the populace were quickly put into place.
AK47s, mortars, and rocket launchers soon started to pile up. In 2003, Sasha
Constable, a quietly spoken British artist, trained in London, teamed up with an
organization with the unwieldy title of the “European Union’s Assistance on
Curbing Small Arms and Light Weapons program,” or EUASAC.
The cooperation provided the opportunity to channel a vision. Young
Khmer artists (from the Royal University of Fine Arts) were aching to express
their feelings about the end of war and their hopes for the newfound peace.
Under the auspices of EUASAC, Sasha cofounded the Peace Art Project Cambodia,
and with expert help from within Cambodia and from around the globe,
her students took all these rusting metal piles of misery and transformed them
into sculptures reflecting their anger at conflict and their desire for peace.
There are giant dragonflies fashioned from machine-gun barrels, huge angry
metal figures breaking apart an AK47, the ubiquitous and potent symbol of
casual murder across Cambodia. Sculptures include delicately poised ballet
dancers, birds of prey with wings soaring, and other more prosaic and typically
Cambodian rural themes: A woman carrying water, two buckets slung across
her shoulders with a bamboo pole, echoes the etiolated figures of Giacometti.
A water buffalo bows its head and a small, sparky guard dog sniffs the air.
In many venues around Phnom Penh you might spot the work of PAPC.
Sometimes it is a bar stool, sometimes an ornament. There’s a sign and clock
made from AK47s at Cantina (p. 74), and a huge “Bird of Peace” sculpture, commissioned
by the Australian Embassy, at Sanderson Park near Wat Phnom.
There are also large municipal sculptures across Cambodia, particularly in Battambang
and Kompong Thom. Although the PAPC program is over, the idea
lives on. A group of Cambodian artists is turning land mines into art under the
auspices of the Cambodian Mine Action Art Project. With support from UNDP,
the artists spend time in the countryside with both local people and working
de-miners, and then create paintings and collages to express how Cambodians
are positively addressing the challenge of land mine and explosive remnants of
war and the effects. The work is shown both within Cambodia and is being
shown abroad as well in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Cambodia’s
ratification of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty.
their new location just across from the Golden Gate Hotel at No. 1C St. 278 (& 012/
709-096).
For essentials and Western groceries, stop by the Lucky Market, No. 160 Sihanouk
Blvd. (& 023/215-229), the most popular shopping center for Phnom Penh’s many
expats. The main branch of “the Lucky” is just west of the Victory Monument traffic
circle, and there’s also a branch on the ground floor of the Sorya Shopping Center (see
below). For fresh, organic produce and fine canned goods, Veggy’s is at No. 23 St. 240