Across the world, Cambodians are celebrating 70 years of independence from the the French and 45 years since the end of the Khmer Rouge. In London, Dyanny So and Fionn Travers-Smith are curating an exhibition from more than 150 items from 20 different Cambodian and internatinal artists to explore Cambodian culture and heritage and to explore what can be learned from the Kingdom of Wonder in a modern day ravaged by war, genocide and trauma.
We catch up co-curator Fionn Travers-Smith to discuss the exhibition.
Tell us about the background of this exhibition. Where did it all come from?
This really started 6 years ago when I made the Beyond Year Zero podcast where we interviewed leaders from different fields and asked how the Khmer Rouge period had affected their area of expertise. Really, this was exploring themes of how the past impacts the present day and how close to the surface the genocide is and how interesting and dynamic the country of Cambodia is today, and that yes, the genocide is supremely important for understanding that and as a reference point and a lens from which to view Cambodian society but it’s not the only thing that’s important and it’s not the only thing worth talking about.
The themes are quite similar in a way. I guess you could say its the precursor to the project. As part of that project I took quite a lot of portraits of the interviewees and the places I visited and I wanted to do something with these.
So the seed of the idea was planted when I came back to the UK in 2019 just before the pandemic because I knew that I wanted to do something with my photography and to share my experiences exploring this topic.
I was trying to think how to make this more inclusive and a more engaging exhibition and the idea was, very obviously, that this a story about Cambodia and it can only ever be told by Cambodians and I am only ever going to have an outsider’s view. Although that can be useful ,especially when you have some context and understanding of a place, but, it’s not my story to tell.
So my next task was to involve people whose story it is and that’s how I came to meet Dayanny So. He is my co-curator and main collaborator on the project. Dayanny is an artist who survived the Khmer Rouge regime as a child and lived in Cambodia throughout the almost four years of the regime and eventually re-settled in the UK age 25 and is now studying his Master’s of Arts at Bournemouth University. He did an exhibition in Hackney in 2015 called ‘Cambodia Recollections’ which I went to and this planted a bit of a seed way back when. I thought THAT actually you don’t need to be a super famous artist to make an exhibition and actually if you are passionate about something and know about something and have something to share about it then you can do that through the mode of an exhibition. So this also planted a seed back in 2015 and I managed to track him down, convince him to take part and we have been working on it ever since. I started writing the application for funding in January 2023 and submitted in November. We got the funding in January 2024 and the exhibition is in June so it’s been about 18 months of an active project and more than five years as a seed of an idea.
Image by Dyanny So: ‘Kroma Teddy Bears.’
Can you tell us about your personal relationship with Cambodia?
Doing this project has really helped me reconnect with my love for Cambodia and that side of my life. But it has also brought up the feelings of wishing that I had stayed longer, that I had gone sooner. Made more of that phase of my life really. But I think that my relationship with Cambodia is a long standing one. It is a country that I have had a deep fascination, affinity and love for since I was 15 years old.
I actually remember the moment I first got interested in and was first intrigued by Cambodia during a religious studies class. We were doing places of worship and I opened the textbook and I saw a gothic cathedral which looked really cool but not that different than what I was used to as a Londoner with lots of Gothic architecture in London and in England. And then there was a really ornate mosque and likewise I thought that it looked pretty and had this distinctive style but not something that is completely unfamiliar to me because we also have a lot of mosques in London. Then, on the next page was Angkor Wat and I just thought ‘What on earth is this?’ It looked so oriental and different and distinctive and unrecognisable and magical and captivating that I was just immediately drawn to it.
So I started looking into it a bit more so not long after discovering Angkor Wat, most people then discover the Khmer Rouge not long after. At the time I was very interested in communism because I thought that the ideal of ‘from each according to their ability to each according to their need’ was a noble one but looking into Cambodia and other scenarios of communism I didn’t understand how such a noble ideal could turn into such an abject horror and unimaginable human suffering and being as this was in my academic phase, the only way I knew how to investigate that was to learn more about it. But, the more I learned about it the less I understood why it happened and the less I understood about why it happened the more I wanted to learn about it and I started going down a rabbit hole and I spent the past 20 years digging and not reaching the bottom.
It’s a fascinating and complex story and one that I don’t think will ever have an answer because the reality of any instance of mass violence is not only is there innumerable circumstances but also on the micro level and the low level there are a ton of circumstances, drivers and individuals that play a part and it’s impossible to separate the pressures and duress that people face from the level of autonomy and responsibly that each individual can exert to reduce instances of killing and mass violence. It is an inexplicably woven and complex story and the more I learn about that the more interesting it becomes. But, beyond the genocide it’s also such a fascinating and amazing country. I lived in Cambodia twice and wrote two dissertations about the history. I even learned the language and I just find them to be incredibly welcoming, warm and resilient people and with a great sense of humour too. I think that’s worth mentioning. I don’t feel like Cambodia is ever not going to be part of me or my life as a result of these experiences.
Image by Fionn Travers-Smith: ‘Sweep of History.’
What do you hope that people will learn from this exhibition?
I have two main aims for the exhibition: In the UK, most people don’t know anything about Cambodia and if they do then it’s only the genocide and Angkor Wat that they know about. While both of these things are incredibly important for understanding Cambodia and the foundational aspects of their history, there is also a lot more to Cambodia than that.
One of the things that always struck me is whenever I saw anything in the public domain about Cambodia it was always quite depressing and focussed on death and those who died. 1.7 million people did lose their lives, mostly through starvation, illness, disease, overwork and malnutrition rather than direct execution, although there was a lot of that too. But what gets lost is that more than 6 million people survived. Those people who did have to live with that trauma to this day, and need to try and process what happened and also to move on and try to rebuild their lives.
Once the Khmer Rouge left it wasn’t like it was back to normal overnight. There were at least 20 more years of strife and suffering. The Khmer Rouge lost power in 1979 and they didn’t disband until 1999. 25 years ago only. So, the country was effectively divided until 99, with the Khmer Rouge still sort of controlling certain areas. It’s an inexplicable part of the country’s history and its present. But that present has moved and the country is informed by that experience and shaped by that experience but it’s not solely defined by that experience. I think what I wanted to do with this exhibition first and foremost was to share an understanding of the breadth and diversity of Cambodian culture and heritage. Recognising the importance of the genocide and not shying away from it but also not focussing exclusively on it.
My second aim: With many Southeast Asian communities, for the older generation it can be quite hard for them to talk about their experiences and there’s a lot of silence in the community. This is partly due to saving face and partly due to the difficulty in processing trauma on both the individual and societal level. So my second aim of the project is really to create space and a platform for Cambodians to reflect on their own history and to be provided a space with which to discuss and reflect on it in a public space, rather than behind closed doors and to invite that conversation amongst the community. The tagline for the exhibition is ‘ Celebrating 70 years of Cambodian Independence’. I think it’s fair to say that Cambodia has had a very tumultuous time of independence since 1953 including of course the genocide, but even before then from the Khmer Republic and the civil war from 70- 75. The golden era of the 1950s and 1960s, the period under Vietnamese control when the Vietnamese kind of re-established the Cambodian state and also arguably did quite a good job. But this is a controversial topic during a controversial period where some people think that Vietnam was colonising Cambodia and the US and UK led an international embargo. So it was just after the genocide and then they get hit with an embargo which made it much more difficult for the country to get back on its feet. Then you have the UNTAC period under UN supervision where it was a bit of lawless place and you had huge UN salaries flooding into a country that barely had an economy so that drove weapons smuggling, prostitution, crime. You had the whole Wild West of the political era where you had Hun Sen starting to strengthen his control and strengthen his grip and becoming the longest serving prime minister in the world before he stepped down recently. There was the struggle for democracy in the 2010s and you can look at what’s going on in the country today.
So that’s a lot of history, as you would expect, in a 70 year span and demonstrates the point about the diversity and breadth of Cambodian culture and heritage because the Khmer Rouge regime lasted less than 4 years and we are talking about 70 years here. There’s actually a lot more to say and it’s a pleasure to have Cambodians participating and to be prioritised in the telling of that story. I hope that it provides opportunity for other Cambodians to reflect on the history and to discuss it with others and to share it with others. I have had some incredible feedback from Cambodians so far, particularly the artists who are participating in that it has given them an opportunity to have more closure and to help process their own trauma as a result of being able to participate and being able to share their story, their archives, their work on this topic. That kind got me going and welling me up because that’s really what I am looking for. To be able to provide that opportunity and that space for a process and healing. And with the exhibition, if nobody turns up but it helps at least one Cambodian to work through their trauma and process what happened to them and their family then that will be a success for me because that is much more important than displaying some photos or any other personal process that might normally be the focus of an art show.