Seeds and Sap

2020

Seeds and Sap is a series of performative images conceived and produced in collaboration with New Cambodian Artists (NCA), a dancer trio of young Cambodian women, in 2019 and 2020. They boldly resisted the conventions of traditional society, giving impetus to my desire to challenge narratives of the female body. I was interested in moving their performance from the stage to unfamiliar environments both natural and man-made. The dancers suggested places they knew in their native Siem Reap region from which I chose the different scenes triggered either by the aesthetic, the atmosphere, or sometimes by their normality. This dislocation served as a starting point for improvised choreographies and new encounters. Each scenario compelled them to think about how their bodies occupy space and interact with their surroundings. The in-situ performances utilized characteristic elements of the NCA universe such as high heels and dresses as well as poses originating from their stage work. One of our first shoots was at night to explore spirit figures of the local folklore and the uncanny imagery of long hair. We drove our motorbikes into nature, into the night, to the unknown, allowing us more freedom and playfulness. Our constant conversation through imagery, shapes, and performance was deeply intuitive. In this series, I invited them to explore my obsessions; fragmented identity, in-betweenness, and disturbing strangeness. It became a fantasy where the awkward cohabits with the beautiful, the prosaic with the delicate, the grotesque with a form of gravity. Seeds and Sap reflects on the cliff-edge moment in the life of female artists who use their bodies as work tools: careers for the young, teaching when they age, but very few models in between. In these images, powerful bodies are anchored like trees, full of sap, like lust for life, but torn between contradictory desires.

Exhibition

• 2023: Slideshow, Photo Phnom Penh, Cambodia
• 2023: Slideshow, Indian Photo Festival, India
• 2021: Print, “Natte, Map” Art Nomad triennial, France
• 2020: Slideshow, “Talks in cyber space, Works-in-progress”, Angkor Photo Festival