In one photograph, a pair of scissors lie on top of a small pile of freshly cut white hair, sharply contrasted against a black background.
“It’s from a lady named Seung Touch. She is 79 years old,” said photographer Kim Hak. “Before the Khmer Rouge, she was a dress maker, and these are her scissors. During the Khmer Rouge time, all the ladies had to cut their hair short. They used these scissors to cut the hair of family members. One day, I was waiting for her grandson— he is my friend— at her home. By chance, it was when she was having her hair cut, so I asked permission to take some of the cut hair to photograph with the scissors.”
The photograph, titled “Alive—3,” is part of a series Hak is creating to portray household items that Cambodian families held on to through the years of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime— everyday objects that became family heirlooms.
Hak said, in that photo, he seeks to interact with the past and present. The old scissors, he said, hint at the woman’s memories of her pre-war career and the life she has lived since then. The white hair shows the passing of time as she has aged.
“To me, it is very important that I capture some connection between the object and its meaning,” Hak said, “so there is a link between past, present and future.”
Another piece in the exhibit is a painting of a boy wearing modern basketball sneakers and staring across the Sangkae River at a group of Buddhist monks boarding a hand-drawn ferryboat.
“He’s looking at the traditions of his home town and trying to figure out how it connects to the world he lives in and his future,” said painter Chov Theanly, who created the work.
The painting, called “The Evening After Class,” is set directly across the street from the shop house where Theanly lives with his family in Battambang, a town in northwestern Cambodia.
The show was curated by: Greenly Director Kimberly Hocking; Mao Soviet, an artist and director of Make Maek Art Gallery in Battambang, Cambodia; and Tim Robertson, an American visual artist who spent the last five years working in Cambodia.
“The theme ‘Roots and Branches’ revolves around origins and aspirations,” said Robertson. “We were looking for work in which the artists dealt with sources of strength and nourishment, aspirations, dreams and the future.”
Cambodia’s history has been a turbulent one in the last 50 years. The late 1960s through the 1980s were characterized by civil war, mass murder and displacement.
“That history has had a profound effect on those living in Cambodia and also Cambodian families who were forced to flee their homeland and settle abroad,” Robertson said. “The women and men sending work from Cambodia are some of the first artists their country has had in an entire generation. The artists living locally in California are part of the first several generations making a new start in a new place and beginning to express their unique perspective.”
Roots and Branches provides an opportunity to experience these artists’ interpretations, responses and expressions ranging from the genealogical to spiritual to ecological and sociological.
The exhibition opening will be 7pm to 10pm on Saturday, Oct. 25. The show will run through Jan. 24, 2015. After the opening, the exhibit will be open for free public viewing Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 11am to 2pm or through appointment by calling (562) 533-4020.
Source: Greenly Art Space
