Memory in Landscape
CKS helped in organizing and hosting a panel discussion called “Memory in Landscape”. This event was part of a larger program, “Landscapes afterwar(d)s” program, organized by Professor Soko Phay and Professor Patrick Nardin, both from the University of Paris 8. The program aimed at questioning the memory of places marked by extreme violence and its consequences. This event fitted nicely with CKS new urban focus, as it also provided our event participants a way to discuss and rethink Cambodian cities from a historical, anthropological and aesthetic perspective.
The invited discussants were: Anne Aghion (film director), Roberto Barbanti (Professor, Paris 8 University), Annette Becker (Professor, Paris 10 University), Luba Jurgenson (Professor, Paris 4 University), Svay Sareth (visual artist, Cambodia), and Patrick Nardin. Natharoun Ngo introduced the event and all panelists.
The roundtable was then moderated by Soko Phay. This academic and artistic meeting at the Center for Khmer Studies also encouraged a discussion upon three artworks: Silence and Yell by SvaySareth, Turbulence by Anne Aghion, and Double Crossing by Patrick Nardin.
Together they invited us to consider the work of remembrance and landscape reconstruction.
For Soko Phay, such discussions are very important as they call the “power of the art which has a role to play in better framing collective trauma and more respectful memory of genocide victims.” Art is also an instrument to call upon contemporary challenges such as the one at the crossroads of development, urbanism, and environmental protection.
