A farmer harvests latex from a rubber tree on now-barren farmland in rural Cambodia, while sketchy figures bathe in the river in front of Phnom Penh’s Royal Palace where the Tonlé Sap meets the Mekong, now one of the world’s most plastic-polluted rivers.
These are just a couple of the haunting scenes depicted by artist Sao Sreymao, whose multimedia works are on view at the SNA Arts Management gallery in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.
The atmospheric pieces juxtapose photography, painting and other mediums — even the “canvases” themselves, with cagelike wire structures peeking out of thick, cement surfaces, seem to have their own backstories.
“[Sreymao] traveled from province to province and documented a lot of landscapes,” said Chum Chanveasna, the exhibit’s curator and manager of SNA Arts Management. “Then, she returned and came back after a year and she looked at how the environment had changed and had disappeared, so she is reconstructing the new landscape.”
Sreymao is among four women artists whose work is featured as part of the gallery’s show, “Reconstructing the Past and the Present,” which deals with themes of family history, urban development and environmental change.
Displaying artwork dealing with environmental degradation and other controversial subjects is notable in Cambodia. Dissent, in the form of activism or journalism, is stifled in Cambodia. But artists there are finding subtle ways to tackle controversial topics from environmental devastation to rapid urbanization.
Chanveasna said artists in Cambodia are able to explore environmental or social issues in the country in a “soft way”, without explicitly speaking out against a problem like a protester would.
“I think it’s OK for [artists] to present work here because [art will] always tell about the real societal issues, but artists are not activists,” she said. “They express [themselves] by telling the story, what they have seen, their own memory, their own history or their own society.”
A Cambodian government spokesperson, Pen Bona, said in a statement that “all citizens, including artists, have the full right to express their opinions. Freedom of expression is guaranteed by the constitution,” adding, “Artists are influential in public spaces, so what they can express in public is their right to freedom, but they must not express anything that is contrary to the law.”
Executive director of the nonprofit Cambodian Living Arts Phloeun Prim said that for artists, it’s a balancing act.
“The political context doesn’t yet fully allow a kind of a full expression of these things. There’s always, kind of, a fine line between politics and what we want and social issues,” he said.
Some artists have been penalized, like rapper Kea Sokun, who received an 18-month jail sentence in 2020 for songs with political content, and in other cases, the government has banned or taken down artwork.
Last year, authorities shut down a photo exhibit highlighting the lives of impoverished urban communities while artist and fashion designer Em Riem was summoned to a meeting with Khmer Artists Association over the clothes he wore to an event. (The organization’s president is Mao Chamnan, who is the wife of tycoon Kith Meng, a longtime adviser of former Prime Minister Hun Sen.)
Even so, contemporary art is still a bit under the radar in Cambodia, according to Reaksmey Yean, a curator in Phnom Penh.
“Art is generally recognized in Cambodia as beauty or as something that is personal,” he said, adding that this allows artists to get away with addressing political topics in their work at times.
“Even though sometimes the message is critical, it becomes less critical because of the aesthetic appearance on the surface of the artwork displayed,” he said.
Artist Yim Maline, whose work focuses on the environment, has exhibited at home and all over the world.
This spring, she is opening a new museum, the Blue Art Center, with her husband, Svay Sareth, in Siem Reap, home of the massive 12th century Buddhist and Hindu temple complex Angkor Wat.
The couple’s work will be on view, including Maline’s installations depicting abstract polluted clouds in the sky, foliage, birds, the sea and a majestic waterfall.
It shows that no matter how beautiful a place like a waterfall is, it can be destroyed by humans if we contaminate the water, Maline said.
“I created this natural waterfall because I want [places like this] to continue to live on,” she said. “We should give more consideration to preserving [nature] so that it can live longer.”
Her husband, Sareth, said that he feels comfortable making artwork about environmental issues and the history of violence and war in Cambodia.
“I think in Cambodia, you don’t have any problem if you’re not a provocation, if you’re not an invisible army of a political party,” Sareth said. “I continue to do my artwork.”
Translation by Phon Sothyroth.