video feature
Phnom Penh
A Virtual Memorial Phnom Penh
CologneOFF 2012 Cambodia
Freedom of Memory
The Cambodia 1975 – 1979 Memorial
Phnom Penh
Today, is the final day of A Virtual Memorial Phnom Penh 2012 – an event which is path breaking through the collaboration with MetaHouse Phnom Penh, respectively its director Nico Mesterharm, a German who was establishing the German-Cambodian Cultural Centre in the heart of Phnom Penh – and his wife Sopheak Sao. Wilfried has a guest room in the house of both, which is open to foreign guests. Phnom Penh is not only located in a tropical and exotic country, it has an impressive history in its positive, as well as in its negative sense. The positive aspect is the incredible highlight of the ancient Khmer culture – Angkhor Wat, but the negative one is referring in its name to this ancient culture – the Khmer Rouge, a Communiste terror regime executing one of the most horrible genocides of all times when during the years 1975 and 1979, the entire educated class – more than one million people were killed in order to establish a dictatorship based on a kind of stoneage ideology. During his visit Wilfried did not only visit the places where the people were exterminated in most cruel ways – the Tuol Slang prison in the heart of Phnom Penh or the Killing Fields with their mass graves. Shocking experiences, Wilfried was thinking, after visiting Auschwitz and Majdanek, nothing could shock him anymore, but visiting the Tuol Slang even for Wilfried it was too much, he had to throw up and was not able to continue his visit – the degree of inhumanity was blasting all his imagination. 
Then, in the context of this, while talking with Nico Mesterharm, who had established at MetaHouse a kind of filmschool, teaching young Cambodian filmmakers, he offered Wilfried the collaboration for forming a new film collection within Wilfrieds “art and moving images” activities – dedicated to the Cambodian genocide and, how young local filmmakers are dealing with this still very vivid national trauma, which was killing whole generations of medical personal, teachers, intellectuals etc and this loss cannot be compensated within a few years or decades. So, the result was – Wilfried received filmic material from two sources – some individual filmmakers like Nico’s wife Sopheak Sao and himself, for instance, the second source comes from DMC the Media Department of the Royal University of Phnom Penh and the German based NGO GIZ (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) and films related to the topic created by students. Later this film collection will become the fundament of The Cambodia 1975-1979 Memorial.
Wilfried is using his time in Phnom Penh for exploring the city by Tuk Tuk and walking, he is crossing the Mekong river by ferry, but unfortunately he did not decide to visit Angkhor Wat, which is quite a long travel within Cambodia. Yes, and then the strange was happening – all the local artists and culturally active people were invited to join the event, many foreign guests were attending, but just a few local artists, and one of the days one of the invited artists entered the MetaHouse for some other reasons, and being asked why he and his collegues did not attend and take the chance for an exchange, the answer was – the artists have no benefit when they are coming, eg. they are not paid for coming, why then should they attend the inauguration or the screenings.
Wilfried never had heard anything like that before, but it was also clear – he was no gold donkey!
Since Wilfried’s travel to Cambodia was leading him via Bangkok, where he had to change the plane, on the way back to Germany, he has one whole day free time before the plane is leaving to Abu Dhabi, and this way Wilfried is getting a short, but good impression about the lively Thai capital.
A Virtual Memorial Phnom Penh 2012 @ Meta House Phnom Penh – 12-15 July 2012
THE META HOUSE
In January 2007, German filmmaker Nico Mesterharm and his Cambodian team opened Phnom Penh’s META HOUSE in association with the International Academy at the Free University of Berlin. Located in the heart of the city, Cambodia’s first art/communication/media center is just a few minutes away from the riverside and Royal Palace.
Boasting more than 100 sq. metres of art exhibition space and an open-air media lounge on the rooftop overlooking Phnom Penh, the three storey gallery offers an excellent space for artists-in-residence and visiting artists to interact. META HOUSE actively supports Cambodian artists and promotes the development of contemporary art in Cambodia through local and international exhibitions, workshops, community-based projects, artist exchange programs and by fostering links with South East Asian and international universities, galleries, curators, non-governmental and governmental organizations.
META HOUSE has not only established itself as a meeting place for artists and art lovers, but also as an intercultural and interdisciplinary networking platform for Cambodian-based artists, Cambodian artists living overseas and their international colleagues.
We firmly believe that contemporary art is a marker of development. The growth of expressive art forms is crucial to the development of any society, none more so than Cambodia where individuals are desperate for a voice. META HOUSE fosters an environment of self-expression and “critical thinking” and promotes art awareness and criticism.
The traditional visual arts in Cambodia reveal the essential conservatism of the Khmer. Ancient themes were preferred and there was rarely an effort to improve or adapt. The principal crafts were weaving, silver and gold works, jewelry, and wood and stone carvings. “Only after independence in 1953, and the arrival of foreign teachers in the capital, were young art students introduced to the Post-Impressionist styles of Gauguin and Picasso, and to a range of new media from gouache to crayon and oil”, writes journalist Robert Turnbull. “Sadly, the subsequent wars put an end to all that: 90 percent of artists either left Cambodia or died during the civil wars of the 1970s. It will doubtless take years to revive that level of activity.”
In recent years, however, the tireless efforts of Cambodian artists, both in Cambodia and abroad, have brought about a resurgence of both classical and contemporary Khmer art. The arts play a particularly important role in helping Cambodians reclaim their heritage, heal their souls and engage in the emerging renaissance.
Creative people from around the globe are invited to contribute to the development of the young Cambodian contemporary art scene and help META HOUSE put Cambodia back on the artistic map.
CologneOFF 2012 Cambodia
presents
A Virtual Memorial Phnom Penh 2012
videoart in a global context
http://phnompenh2012.a-virtual-memorial.org
12-15 July 2012
The event is standing under the motto
The Freedom of Memory
dedicated to the genocide in Cambodia 1975-1979
program
12 July 2012
Opening 19h
Introduction – afterwards the screening
1. CologneOFF 8
Owe Eric Wood (USA) – Return,2011, 5:00
Albert Merino (Spain) – Les Bagneurs, 2010, 3:30
Angelika Herta (Austria) – Man of Iron, 2011, 1:53
Andreij Tisma (Serbia) – Taking Away Privacy, 2012, 3:12
Guli Silberstein (UK) – Disturbdance, 2012, 3:35
Iva Vermaae (Estonia) – Warm Up, 2009, 2:50
Paul Turano (USA) – Red Toxic Sludge, 2010, 5:00
Brit Bunkley (New Zealand) – Futurology, 2010, 6:06
Jean-Michel & Jim Rolland (France) – Smiles & Slaps, 2012, 3:53
Denes Rusza (Hungary) – +1C, 2009, 1:57
Cincia Sarto (Italy) – Dirty Vacation, 2005, 7:04
Kristina Frank (Sweden) – Take to the Woods, 2010, 6:00
Dan Hudson (Canada) – River, 2011, 3:12
Founded in 2012 by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne, the Cologne based media artist and curator, The Cambodia 1975-1979 Memorial – is commemorating the genocide executed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
The Khmer Rouge forced virtually the entire population of Cambodia into mobile work teams. Michael Hunt said that it was “an experiment in social mobilization unmatched in twentieth-century revolutions.” The Khmer Rouge used an inhumane forced labor regime, starvation, forced resettlement, land collectivization, and state terror to keep the population in line.
Historian Ben Kiernan has compared the Cambodian genocide to the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire and the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany. While each was unique, they shared certain common features. Racism was a major part of the ideology of all three of the genocidal regimes. All three targeted religious minorities and tried to use force of arms to expand into what they believed to be their historical heartlands (the Khmer Empire, Turkestan, and Lebensraum respectively), while all three regimes “idealized their ethnic peasantry as the true ‘national’ class, the ethnic soil from which the new state grew.”
After being initiated in 2012, in 2013, the film collection was presented for the 1st time to a public audience.
In 2012, the second collection “Cambodia 1975-1979” followed -consisting primarily of documentaries – is dealing with the Cambodian genocide 1975-1979. It is a collaboration between Wilfried Agricola de Cologne /artvideoKOELN international, Nico Mesterharm/MetaHOUSE – German-Cambodian Cultural Centre Phnom Penh and DMF @ Royal University of Phnom Penh & GIZ (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) Phnom Penh.
The collection includes videos by young Cambodian film makers educated at the filmschool @ MetaHouse Phnom Penh and Depart6ment of Film and Media @ the Royal university. All videos try to re-establish an own induividual and collective identity by reflecting the genocide all Cambodian families are suffering from.
The film collection is a corporate part of the audiovisual art collections @ The New Museum of Networked Art.
in 2017, the film collection was included in the global networking project – The W:OW Project – We Are One World – http://wow.engad.org, and later this year transformed into “the Memorial for the Victims of Genocide”, not only related to the genocide in Cambodia, but any genocide, happening before and after Cambodia.
In 2018, the memorial became corporate part of the media art context – “The 7 Memorials for Humanity” – http://7mfh.a-virtual-memorial.org
The Cambodia Film Collection
Cambodia 1975-1979
40 documentaries about the Cambodian genocide and the post-genocide era until today
Molyka Bin (Cambodia) It burned Me, 2011, 13:18
DCM – Royal University of Cambodia – Looking Back, 2007, 50:00,
DMC – Royal University of Cambodia – Young in the City, 2011, 24:00
DMC – Royal University of Cambodia – No Comment Cambodia, 2012, 64:00
Neang Kavich (Cambodia) – SMOT, 2011, 17:20
Nico Mesterham (Cambodia) – Pepperfields, 2010, 23:05
Nico Mesterham (Cambodia)/Mark Hammond (USA) – A DAY in the Factory, 2010, 7.24
Nico Mesterham (Cambodia)/Mark Hammond (USA) – A Day Around The Factory, 2010, 7.22
Nico Mesterham (Cambodia)/Mark Hammond (USA) –A Day Off From The Factory, 2010, 7.44
Nico Mesterham (Cambodia)/Mark Hammond (USA) – A Weekend with the Manager, 2010, 8.22
MetaHouse Phnom Penh (Cambodia) – 25 Frames to Moves, 2011, 20:39
Sopheak Sao (Cambodia) – Two Girls Against The Rain, 2012, 11:00
Sopheak Sao (Cambodia) The Survivor, 2011, 2012
Chhuon Sarin (Cambodia) – I can be who I am, 2011, 3:14
The complete film collection can be reviewed on the memorial site
http://cambodia.engad.org/
