KhmerBird has a new webzine for you to check out, including:

Heart Talk – post-production
DJ Buffy – Love and Life Chat on Love FM 97.5
The Burnt Theater
The Dark Sky
Linda Tek – a sexy Khmer model

and i have a lot in mind: reflection on Cambodian Cinema today, an review on music of les larmes d’Angkor….

hope www.lookatkhmer.com will have support from all of you.

Tags: cambodia,web,khmer

In an idea shamelessly stolen borrowed from Warren Ellis, I’m going to let the pictures do the talking.

From Tharum Bun	From Chantra
From Cambochique	From Anth’n'Andy
From e.briel	From xWanna
From traactivity	From viirak

All rights reserved respective owners.

Tags: cambodia,photography,photo,khmer

‘Twice Up’ is publishing slang – referring to an image double the size that it will eventually be printed at.   Many illustrators use this ratio as they prepare their work.

I used this term for a weekly column in The Advisor, featuring a new artist each week to depict a colloquial Cambodian topic.*  I decided I’d ask Svay Ken to participate – even though he is regarded more as a painter than a magazine illustrator.

It was appropriate that the senior artist became the subject of the article, in this instance.  I have a deep respect for the honesty of his images, and just a touch of envy for his commitment as a prolific creator.  Many of his paintings, taken in sequence, could be viewed as comic narrative.

Here are some ‘outtakes’ from the interview that informed the ‘Twice Up’ article for June 2008.

How old are you?
I was born in 1933.

What age did you start to paint?
I started to paint at the age of 60.

What led you to become a painter?
The story is that at that time I worked in Le Royal Hotel, and in the age of 60 I was required to retire. Because I needed regular income to support my children’s studies, I asked my supervisor to prolong my job duration in the hotel. Our income just could afford for the daily expenses. At that time, my children were studying. Some graduated high school, and some entered to university, and some were in secondary school. If I had stopped working in the hotel and had received [my] pension fund, I could not have supported my children’s studies and family. That was why I decided not to stop working in the hotel. On the other hand, because of my old age and health concerns, I always thought that I could not work in the hotel for long, so I started to think to find ways that enable me to earn sustainable income. It took me for several months to realize that I had the blood of artist. My grandfather and aunts were the classical artists. Presently, in this generation no one is interested in the occupation of art. I used to spend little time to draw for pleasure. In this regard, I started to get involved with and gave myself a chance for a try for this occupation. The main factor that made me  become the artist is to earn money. Money is the only reason.

How long does it take you do one painting?
At the first stage, it was extremely hard for me to paint pictures since I did not learn from any teacher. It took me around 15 days to get one painting done without any assistance from anyone else. It was really difficult! It took me long to understand the concept of the painting so that I could shorten the time to have a painting done. It was very hard at the first time, but it was later not so difficult. Getting one painting done depends on my feeling. There is no pressure; it is a freedom. Anytime I am healthy, I paint. Sometimes it takes me three or four days to get one painting done.

How many paintings a week are you able to produce?
The number of paintings depends on my health. If I am healthy, I paint, but if not, I leave the painting and relax. It is not sure. It is not always every hour or every day; I cannot do that. I need to have some time to go out for religious ceremonies and public events.

Do you have any plan for your art works in the future?
This year, perhaps after an exhibition in Meta House, I am assisted in organizing another exhibition [in December].

I plan to organize my own exhibition early next year, probably in March. The plan for it has already been organized, but I don’t know whether I can make it or not. I have some paintings for this, and I try to find any gallery to place the paintings for a month, but if I place the paintings in hotel, I am allowed a few hours for placing them.

[Update: Svay Ken will have an exhibition in late October at Bophana Center, details to follow!] 

Contact: Khmer Art Gallery, Street 47, Phnom Penh, Cambodia  092 549 089

‘Twice Up’ Article: http://www.expat-advisory.com/cambodia/phnom-penh/twice-up-blues-with-a-brush.php
‘The Advisor’ issue 4 PDF file:  http://www.expat-advisory.com/advisor/advisor-260608.pdf

*Credit due to Paul Stewart for gleaning out the name. And Anthony & Charlie for shepherding the whole shebang.

Tags: cambodia,history,painting,khmer

A lot of talk about print media lately. The Phnom Penh Post has gone daily. The Advisor is ‘not dead, just resting’, and The Mekong Times has come to a halt. Some of my friends were complaining about the lack of English language reading matter.

But hey, there are heaps of publications – there’s a magazine boom on!

Every day it seems like there is a new magazine, newspaper or book. To prove the naysayers wrong, I rocked up to the newsstand and grabbed a few tidbits.

Economics Today (August edition pictured here) kinda sorta looks like… a similarly named magazine, don’tcha think? I expect they were counting on that.

The fact that there are enough buyers in the Kingdom to warrant a separate Khmer and English edition rocks my world. Looks like they are tailoring it to different readerships too – the English edition has a different numbering than the Khmer edition. (And at the newsstand I went to, no Khmer edition was available. Sold out? Hmm…)

Let’s see… the obligatory tourism article or two, recipes and filler from wire services – especially when it comes to global markets and issues. The magazine shines the most in its original content – with articles ranging from local intellectual property issues to analysis of how middlemen function in the agricultural market (and how farmers get market info via text messages!) Coverage of local exhibitions, a tactful mention of human rights concerns, and a spotlight on the self-employed (‘Wat Phnom’s Women Photographers’) aren’t bad either. The most potentially controversial item is the most understated: pages of market and commodity statistics, including inflation rates. I’ll be reading this magazine again.

By billing themselves as ‘Cambodia’s Business Magazine’ and offering Paypal PDF downloads by issue or article, the publisher is certainly working it.

Perhaps the main purpose is to flog their service of economic data provision. Behind the publisher ETMCambodia.com is – The Economic Institute of Cambodia, a nonprofit. It wouldn’t be the first time a not-for-profit entity spun off a profit generating funnel – Hagar Soya, anyone?

What I’d particularly enjoy amongst all these articles is an analysis of how ‘Economics Today’ came to be, and where it fits in the mixed economy of business and nonprofits. Would it be safe to assume that the overall institutional opinions of EIC (cited as an objective source in one article) will be reflected in this publication?

Economics is not an exact science; the one thing missing is a robust debate on its nonexistent ‘Letters To The Editor’ page.  I’ll be curious to see how the magazine evolves.
Tags: cambodia,economics,magazine,business

Comicist Chan Pisey is profiled by the Phnom Penh Post.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2008082021276/Post-Life/Comic-artist-Chan-Pisey-thinks-outside-the-box.html

You can see her art in the [Re]Generations Anthology,

and at the current ‘Art of Survival’ exhibition in Phnom Penh.
More courtesy Meta House and Andy Brouwer.

Tags: cambodia,comic,comics,khmer