Nine artists will be featured in an art exhibition, Art in the Park, at the French Embassy on March 7 to encourage people’s love of nature.
On Thursday, the artists introduced their work for the upcoming showcase, which features creations made from recycled materials.
Leang Seckon, one of Cambodia’s leading artists, presented a 140-meter-long dragon made of household plastic waste.
“I used plastic in connection with nature — as in our everyday lives, when we live with both plastic and nature,” Seckon said.
He wants to promote a sense of responsibility toward nature, he said. “As an artist, I must work on in-depth projects that can foster the beauty of the environment.”
Cambodian-American artist Sopheap Pich, meanwhile, fashioned butterfly wings out of the drooping branches of a large derm chrey tree on the embassy’s compound.
Pich said that in other countries he had seen the branches of old trees propped up by supports; unlike in Cambodia, where, he said, such branches would be trimmed or cut off.
“In China and Japan, they will use a pedestal to support the branch; but this tradition I have never seen in Phnom Penh so far,” he said.
A row of bamboo sticks placed under branches transforms them into wing-like walls.
Members of the public who wish to view the artworks on days other than March 7 are required to make an appointment with the French Embassy.
Embassy press officer Tung Soklim said that if there was high demand, the exhibition would be opened to the public for a second day.
French Ambassador Eva Nguyen Binh said the inventive pieces had brought the trees in the embassy compound to life.
“These trees, through artistic proposals, become at the same time beings to which we pay tribute for their beauty and their fragility, refuges, witnesses of memory. They are like immobile terminals giving meaning to life,” Nguyen Binh said.
Next week’s exhibition — the embassy’s second Art in the Park event — features Ouk Chim Vichet, Gregory Gosselin, Riem Monisilong, Mak Remissa, Leang Seckon, Srey Bandaul, Meas Sokhorn, Sopheap Pich and Veasna Tith.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that an appointment was necessary to view the art on March 7. An appointment is required only to view the art on other days.
