Seeds and Sap – Eleonore Sok

Seeds and Sap (2019-2021)

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 in their native Siem Reap region from which I chose the different scenes triggered either by the aesthetic or the atmosphere.
This dislocation served as a starting point for improvised choreographies. Each scenario compelled the dancers to interact with the space and their surroundings. The in-situ performances utilized characteristic elements of the NCA universe such as high heels and dresses as well as poses. One of our first shoots was at night, driving our motorbikes into nature, to the unknown, allowing us more freedom and playfulness. There, spirit figures of the local folklore and the uncanny imagery of long hair appeared. 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 also 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.

Exhibitions

2024: Solo exhibition “In Between Breaths”, Java Creative Cafe, Cambodia
2023: Slideshow, Photo Phnom Penh, Cambodia
2023: Slideshow, Indian Photo Festival, Hyderabad, India
2021: Prints, “Natte Map” itinerary exhibition, Art Nomad triennial, France
2020: Slideshow, “Talks in cyber space, Works-in-progress”, Angkor Photo Festival