Lim Sokchanlina
Residency period
02 April – 29 June 2018
About
Working with photography, video, installation, and performance the multidisciplinary practice of Lim Sokchanlina (b. 1987, Cambodia) scrutinizes the developments in the social, political, cultural, economic, and environmental landscape of Cambodia brought about by a rampant process of modernisation. Recent solo and group exhibitions include Sunshower: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2017); Urban Aspiration, The Physics Room Contemporary Art Space, Auckland, New Zealand (2016); and Urban Street Nightclub, SA SA BASSAC, Phnom Penh, Cambodia (2013).
Lim is committed to a number of community-based projects that foster research, education, and collaborative methodologies in Phnom Penh. In 2007, he co-founded the collective Stiev Selapak which, in 2010, evolved into the artist-run space Sa Sa Art Projects. He also collaborated to establish Analogue Prints Laboratory, the first public-access darkroom in the capital of Cambodia.
Focus
In recent years, as globalisation accelerates the process of urbanisation, both developed and developing countries are experiencing a significant influx of immigrants. The reality of cities erected entirely through foreign labour has become increasingly common and the flows of temporary migration lead to the formation of “mini-nations” nestled within rapidly growing cities, that is enclaves of migrant workers that congregate, cohabit, and share material and immaterial resources in foreign countries. Pursuing his interest in the social, political, cultural, and economic impact of globalisation, during the residency Lim Sokchanlina investigates bureaucratic and political apparatuses as well as the personal and psychological aspects that define Singapore’s communities of migrant workers in Little India and “Little Burma” considered as case studies to be compared with similar enclaves in Cambodia and Thailand.