19. Battambang, Cambodia: Back from Genocide

(Mural in Battambang painted by five artists)

The city of Battambang was once -- and may yet be again -- Cambodia's cultural capital. Before the 1975-79 genocide that wiped out up to two-million people, it was home to many of Cambodia's most prominent artists. This included the man known as "The Cambodian Elvis", Sinn Sisamouth and the woman regarded as the best female rock singer, Ros Sereysothea:

Unfortunately, musicians, artists and intellectuals were among the first victims targeted by the Khmer Rouge. Sisamouth and Sereysothea, and eventually one in four or five Cambodians, died in the holocaust.

Today, Battambang, despite being the country's second-largest city, has a tranquil stillness to it that is missing in dusty, congested, noisy and motorcycle-strewn capital Phnom Penh and (gateway to Angkor Wat) Siem Reap. It's sort of a quiet melange of Chinese shop houses,  French colonial buildings, and trendy restaurants, pubs and art galleries.

More than three-and-a-half decades after the Khmer Rouge were kicked off their genocidal perch by the Vietnamese, Battambang is finally beginning to re-emerge as Cambodia's cultural hub. It has more artists per-capita than any other Cambodian city. It's now considered alright, even good, to be an artist. Better still, it's safe to admit to it.

Battambang has a very strong cultural support infrastructure anchored by the performing arts school Phare Ponleu Selpak. Phare, as it's known for short, has more than 1,000 young, disadvantaged Cambodians studying circus skills, as well as theatre, painting, drawing, design and animation.

Cambodia is a very youthful country. The median age, depending on which source you believe, is 21-24. They bring a tremendous vitality and energy - and a lot of colour - to both their street and canvas art. Take, for example, our masthead photo. In fact, let's break it down a bit. The woman on the far left is Ros Sereysothea, painted by 29-year-old, self-taught artist Chov Theanly:

Theanly (Cambodians list their first names last), who can usually be found painting with oil on canvas, frequently shows his figures with their noses just above a "waterline" to underscore that Cambodians are barely surviving.

The next two parts of the mural were painted by 32-year-old Khchao Touch:

Obviously, there's some patch-up work needed, which Touch will take care of as soon as she can find a spare moment away from being a mother, wife, and co-owner of a store and restaurant/bar/art gallery.

Like Theanly, Touch does most of her work on canvas. Unlike Theanly, she is a graduate of Phare. We spent a pleasant few hours with Touch and you'll find out more about her and her art in our next post.

One part of the mural virtually screams out to be noticed:

It's by Long Kosal. Unfortunately, we couldn't discover much about him except the obvious: he's a graduate of Phare and likes painting large format portraiture, usually in the colour orange. We know even less about the artist who painted the final piece of the mural, Nhem Pearun.

One thing we do know a lot about is the restaurant behind the wall. It's called Jai Baan (Rice Bowl) and is a social enterprise that takes kids off the streets, teaches them restaurant skills on site, as well as English. It consistently ranks as the No.1 or 2 Battambang restaurant on Trip Advisor. And that's not a sympathy vote - we can attest to that personally. During our meal there, the service was excellent, the wait staff was very professional and friendly, they could answer questions about the food, and the pan-Asian food was the best we had in our three weeks in Cambodia. They also display and sell art inside the restaurant.

Another great place to see street and other forms of art is the Sammaki Gallery, an artist-run, not-for-profit, community art space:

The inside wall surrounding the art space is brightly decorated with street art by the likes of Ot Veasna:

 

A. THY

 

 

And a few artists that are unknown to us:

 

As we entered the gallery, we could see a number of Ot's canvas works placed carefully on the floor. Clearly, the gallery was preparing for an exhibition of his works:

Ot was definitely the man of the hour, because he also had another show on at the same time at the Lotus Gallery Bar.

The Lotus is co-owned by Touch and her husband Darren Swallow. In Battambang, artists don't compete against each other, they help each other climb to new heights.

There's probably one more thing you should know about Ot. We didn't tell you about it up front because we wanted you to view him first as what he is: an enormously talented, wildly imaginative and hugely creative artist.

But he's also had a tough life, even by Cambodian standards. Ot's father ran away when his mother was pregnant with him. He was born unable to hear or speak. His mother kept him out of school, so he can't read or write and can only sign a little. And yet what a truly amazing world and cast of characters he has invented for himself - and for us. Yet another example of the strength and resilience of the Cambodian spirit.

18. We Get by with a Little Help from our Friends (Part II)

JUI JUIS

The Travelling Apples (see previous post) weren't the only bloggers to respond to our cri de coeur for help in finding Chiang Mai's best street art. We also heard from Lani Cox, who writes the witty, zany, and eponymous blog, Life, the Universe and Lani. If you'd like a good laugh while learning a lot about the ex-pat life, you owe it to yourself to check it out: lanivcox.wordpress.com

Lani was born in Hawaii to a Thai mother and Chinese father. She's lived in a zillion places, making her a real child of the universe. Or at least a child of planet earth - though it wouldn't surprise if she'd done a stint or two on a Jovian moon. For purposes of our tale, however, what you need to know is that she lived in Chiang Mai and was up on the local street-art scene. 

Life, is full of strange coincidences. One of the locations that Lani recommended was well-away from the centre of the city and mostly invisible from the street. But, as it turned out, it was also just around the corner from where we were taking an all-day Thai cooking course. After class, with our bellies full of springs rolls, Tom Yam Goong, glass noodles, garlic shrimp, fried bananas and a number of other Thai delicacies, we waddled over to the street art and started shooting.

Many of the murals were created as part of a 2013 campaign to promote literacy:



NHHS

 



YUREE KENSAKU (Bangkok)

 

(detail from previous picture)

 

SOPER (France)

 

MISS INK (FOR Crew, Bangkok)

 

 

 

 

As you can see, Thailand has a lot of talented street artists working its neighbourhoods. If only they could find the nerve to come out of the shadows and the alleys, and showcase their art on its streets.

 

Well, that's a wrap on our series of posts on Thailand. Next up, Cambodia.

 

 



17. We Get by with a Little Help from our Friends (Part 1)

In the normal course of street-art-hunting, we usually find it fairly easy to track down our targets, even if we're in a city that we're unfamiliar with. Our not-so-magic-formula includes: hours of research on the Internet; wearing away inches of shoe leather on the streets; and engaging locals in conversation about the community art scene.

But every rose has it thorns, and our normal approach just didn't work that well in Chiang Mai. In a city with hundreds of alleys, it just isn't that easy to discover which needle is hiding in which haystack. Sure, we found some pretty decent murals, which we highlighted in our previous two posts. But we knew that much better lay out there. Somewhere. But where?

Luckily, I (Seymour) had been reading -- and very much enjoying -- a blog called Travelling Apples. The "apples" were, in fact, Chris and Sarah Appleford, a young couple from Melbourne who had quit their jobs, sold everything and, along with son Jack, headed off into the great unknown -- blogging about it all the way. I found their writing to be witty and informative and their advice will be especially helpful to adults travelling with the wee folk. (You should check it out at: www.travellingapples.com)

Most importantly for us, they had lived in Chiang Mai, biked it's streets and alleys, and Sarah had even written a post about Chiang Mai street art that was accompanied by her amazing photos. She had clearly found the motherload that we'd been looking for.

Knowing that bloggers are friendly and helpful folk, I dashed off an e-mail to the Travelling Apples asking if they could point us in the right direction. Chris wrote back almost immediately, providing not only guidance, but Google maps and street photos as well. With that advice in hand, we were able to track down the brilliant elephant mural above, the butterfly-themed murals by Iagazzo featured in our last post, and the following colourful murals:

Even better, the Applefords gave us permission to use any of Sarah's photos from Chiang Mai. So once again, with our gratitude to the Travelling Apples, we offer you the following murals:

 

 

So, the world really is, what my old graduate school communications professor, Marshall McLuhan, liked to call a "global village". If you're having trouble at your end of the street, just reach out to one of your digital neighbours. Chances are they'll come through in spades.

 

 

16. A Close-Up Look at Suis Sun, NHHS and Iagazzo

Chiang Mai street artists are a bit more willing to attach their names to their work than their counterparts in Bangkok. This makes it easier to recognize individual styles and identify who's behind the art.

Three of our favourites are Suis Sun and NHHS - both members of Dog Crew - and iagazzo (Patinas):

Suis Sun, from Chiang Mai, creates simple, colour-filled forms that often have a playful nature to them. We like to think his work would be a fun way to introduce a child to the creative world of street art: 

By contrast, NHHS's murals are more complex, and they are painted within clearly defined lines:

 

 

But clearly the most sophisticated street art is by Catalan butterfly- lover iagazzo (Patinas):

 

 

 

 

We hope that the art we are showcasing today encourages others to attach their names to their work. After all, artists can only gain recognition when people are able to associate their names with a body of work. And there are so many artists vying for attention. As Mue Bon reminds us: it's a fish-eat-fish world out there!