Guns to Galleries for Young Cambodian Sculptors
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By Ed Cropley, Reuters
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Forget "swords to ploughshares." A group of ambitious
young Cambodians are turning guns and rocket launchers into works of art.
Working almost exclusively in the unusual medium of the AK-47 rifle, 21 art
students, who three months ago had only ever sculpted in clay, have already
turned out an array of metallic birds and beasts worthy of any modern art
gallery.
Funded in part by Oscar-winning actresses Angelina Jolie and Emma Thompson, as
well as the European Union, sculptures from the "Peace of Art Project" are set
to be displayed eventually at the United Nations in New York and EU
headquarters in Brussels.
"It's certainly not easy and can even be dangerous. We can't afford to get
careless because we are using heavy-duty equipment," says Touun Tourneakea, 26,
deftly putting the finishing touches to his "AK-47 bicycle" with an
angle-grinder.
Around him in the workshop, an old warehouse on the outskirts of the
impoverished southeast Asian nation's capital, an incessant banging and
crashing rings out as the rusting old weapons are heated, bashed and ground
into shape.
For most of the students, all of them from Phnom Penh's Royal University of
Fine Arts, fashioning rifles, rocket launchers and heavy machine guns in forges
and over anvils is an artistic dream come true.
For the project's founders and backers, it is a golden chance to promote a more
peaceful, weapons-free society.
GUN CULTURE...
After decades of war and upheaval, including the Khmer Rouge genocide of the
1970s, Cambodia remains awash with guns, in particular Chinese- or Russian-made
AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles, the weapon wielded with deadly effect by guerrillas
across the globe.
However, with the gradual spread of peace in the 1990s and increased security
for communities in even the most far-flung, jungle-clad provinces, householders
no longer need to be armed.
In fact, it is now illegal for civilians to keep a weapon under their roof. Yet
in the provinces, shootings, often involving blind-drunk protagonists arguing
over anything from a piglet to a prostitute, are an almost daily occurrence.
Efforts to get villagers to hand in stashed arms meet understandable resistance
from people who have lived nearly all their lives in the shadow of conflict.
However, the message is slowly getting through.
Around 115,000 weapons have been destroyed in the last few years in a series of
large, very public EU-sponsored "Flames of Peace" bonfires. Now, organizers
hope to use art to change local attitudes to weapons and violence.
"Taking the weapons and turning them into art seems to be the perfect symbolism
of a step away from a post-conflict society toward a society with a culture of
peace," said David de Beer, head of the EU's small arms reduction program in
Phnom Penh.
Touun Tourneakea and his colleagues, who are making meter-high
(three-foot-high) elephants, birds and horses out of weapons surrendered in the
former Khmer Rouge-controlled province of Pursat, hope their work on public
display in the capital might make a small contribution.
"It's good if this helps educate the general public to stop violence, stop
using guns and hand them in. Hopefully, doing this will help ensure peace," he
said.
TO CULTURE
The students hammer away under the watchful gaze of British artist Sasha
Constable, a sculptress who is herself descended from the great 19th century
landscape painter John Constable.
Having given her proteges, who had previously struggled to tell their Picasso
from their elbow, a one-week crash course in the evolution of 20th-century
concrete art, as well as oxyacetylene welding, she is amazed by the results.
Given the country's strong tradition of sculpture, notably the stunning
800-year-old temples of Angkor, Constable even thinks the discipline might flow
naturally in Cambodian veins.
"I have art in my genes and I really believe that all the young artists I've
come into contact with have 'sculpture genes'," Constable said. "They come from
a country with an amazing sculptural heritage."
Whatever the source of their inspiration, there is no shortage of drive or
ambition.
"Picasso is my favorite artist -- his paintings show great skill," said Chhay
Bunna, 22, proud creator of a 65-cm-high metallic nodding peacock. "If I work
hard to improve all the time, one day I might become as famous."
02/19/04 21:49 ET
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