TP directed by Vuth Lyno

Vuth Lyno, UNTAC project, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.

The artist will lead a course for a group of stu­dents coming from dif­ferent dis­ci­plinary back­grounds. The objec­tive is to foster their uni­ver­sity studies with the pos­si­bility of exper­i­menting with new reflexive for­mats to pre­sent sci­en­tific knowl­edge through an artistic, and inno­va­tive, trans­dis­ci­plinary approach.

For this ses­sion, the Cambodian artist Vuth Lyno, with the assis­tance of four art stu­dents, is invited to work with the teachers of the uni­ver­sity so as to set up a ped­a­gog­ical and artistic pro­ject for a total period of 24 hours.

Taking the UNTAC (United Nation Transitional Authority of Cambodia) as a starting point for this TP, the artist offers the par­tic­i­pating stu­dents to con­sider their own research topic through the prism of the effect pro­duced by external forces on the journey of objects, of indi­vid­uals.

Vuth Lyno (b. 1982, Phnom Penh) is an artist, curator and artistic director of Sa Sa Art Projects, Phnom Penh’s only artist-run space, located in the his­toric and presently endan­gered neigh­bor­hood known as the White Building. Vuth’s prac­tice is pri­marily par­tic­i­pa­tory and col­lab­o­ra­tive in nature, engaging specific Cambodian com­mu­ni­ties and the cul­tures unique to them. Vuth holds a Master of Art History from the State University of New York, Binghamton, sup­ported by Fulbright fel­low­ship.
Vuth is an artist-in-res­i­dence at Betonsalon, Paris (2016) and was a par­tic­i­pant of International Art Residency, Para Site, Hong Kong (2015).

On Friday morn­ings, from 9.30 a.m until 12.00 p.m.:

Friday, September 30: Session 1
Cambodian artist Vuth Lyno, director of this term’s Académie vivante (Living academy), intro­duced the foun­da­tions of the dis­cus­sion, reflec­tion and cre­ation that will take place during upcoming ses­sions of the prac­tical course. UNTAC (or United Nations Transitional Authority of Cambodia) has been pre­sented as a metaphor for the inter­ven­tion of an external and dis­rupting ele­ment that has somehow trig­gered a devi­a­tion of tra­jec­to­ries. In other words, the artist ques­tions the rela­tion between indi­vid­uals and the con­text in which they evolve, and inter­ro­gates the extent to which one’s sur­round­ings can influ­ence one’s path.
Every par­tic­i­pant will appro­priate this rela­tion between two sep­a­rate ele­ments in regard to their own research interest. Participants will explore con­cepts of con­ta­gion, con­tam­i­na­tion, inter­rup­tion or upheaval.
Participants took part in two games during this first ses­sion, thus encour­aging tac­tile and bodily expe­ri­ences.

The maze game invited participants to orient themselves , solely by communicating through their movements.

The second game consisted in transmitting messages to one another by , solely by means of mime.

Friday, October 7: Session 2
Four groups were formed around themes that would guide later team­work:
1) Memory and Identity
2) Environment and Expression
3) Knowledge and/or Power
4) Fiction and rep­re­sen­ta­tion

Vuth Lyno intro­duced the mod­ern­iza­tion pro­cess of Cambodia in the 1960s. He addressed both the archi­tec­ture of Phnom Penh, the cap­ital city, and the for­ma­tion of the modern Khmer cul­ture, which occurred at the same time period.

In order to invite par­tic­i­pants to con­cep­tu­alize and take dis­tance from mate­rial objects, Vuth Lyno pro­posed an exer­cise con­sisting in exhausting the meaning of an art­work by dis­cussing it for 10 min­utes.
This intro­duced the fol­lowing set of ques­tions, which tar­geted the notion of con­cept, its def­i­ni­tion, and its use in fields of sci­en­tific and artistic research.

Friday, October 14: Session 3
Elaborating on topics that were raised during pre­ceding ses­sions, the third meeting started with a game: seated in circle, par­tic­i­pants passed on a brick to each other while inventing, every time they had the brick in their hands, a new use to this object until 100 pos­sible func­tions have been assigned to it.
This exer­cise encour­aged taking a step back from the mate­rial, prac­tical use of an object while inviting to resort to one’s own imag­i­na­tion.

Friday, October 21: Session 4
Meeting at the Réserve des arts to col­lect and get inspired by mate­rial in order to pre­pare for fol­lowing ses­sions ded­i­cated to mate­ri­al­izing ongoing pro­jects.

Friday, October 28 and Friday, November 4: ses­sions 5 and 6
Participants gath­ered in groups to dis­cuss and elab­o­rate on their pro­jects and to try out dif­ferent methods of dis­playing their works in the space of Bétonsalon. 

Saturday, November 5: Final ses­sion and dis­play of the works
The mate­rial results of works pro­duced by the four groups were pre­sented during the last day of the Anywhere But Here exhi­bi­tion at Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, proposing an inter­ven­tion along existing exhib­ited works and within the space itself.

Open to everyone: inscrip­tion at public­s@­be­ton­salon.net.