Location: Lawn on east side of Buell Hall (in between Buell and Philosophy)
Participants to include Leang Seckon (Cambodian artist, creator of Flowering Parachute Skirt), Arn Chorn-Pond (genocide survivor and founder of Cambodian Living Arts), John Rowan (National President of Vietnam Veterans of America) and Paul Critchlow (Vietnam veteran, graduate of Columbia School of Journalism and Vice Chairman of Public Markets at Bank of America)
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
A parachute from the Vietnam War, transformed by Cambodian artist Leang Seckon into an emblem of reconciliation, will be the centerpiece of a public peace gathering involving Vietnamese and Cambodian survivors of that war as well as U.S. veterans at Columbia University.
The parachute, which fell to earth in Seckon’s village during the U.S. bombing of Cambodia, has been repurposed into a sculpture, Flowering Parachute Skirt, and decorated with flowers cut from sarongs from his home village as well as from fabrics given by the Cambodian-American community in the Bronx – turning it into the skirt of a fantastical soldier figure.
Arn Chorn-Pond, genocide survivor and founder of Cambodian Living Arts, will join Seckon, along with other survivors and U.S. veterans, in a ritual to help both groups heal from the trauma of that war. “By adding beauty to this object of war, I hope to transform it into an instrument of peace and healing,” Seckon said.
Exhibit generally open for public viewing Mondays-Fridays, 12-5:30 p.m., plus first and last Saturdays (April 13 and May 4, 12-5:30 p.m.). Please check back here for any exceptions or changes to this schedule.
PLEASE NOTE: The exhibit will be closed May 1-2 due to a conference. The exhibit will be open on May 3 from 3-5:30 p.m. and on the last day, Saturday, May 4, 12-5:30 p.m.
Exhibit featured in a Columbia News video:
Exhibit curated by Soko Phay-Vakalis and Pierre Bayard
This exhibit features seventy works of visual arts (paintings, drawings, photographs) made by the great contemporary artists Vann Nath and Séra (both survivors of the genocide), as well as works by emerging artists who were invited to create artworks evoking the genocide during three "memory workshops" held between 2008 and 2012. This exhibit highlights the dynamism and the strength of creation of three generations of Cambodian artists. The diversity and the polysemy of their artworks testify also to the passage from I to we, from an intimate way of living and thinking to a collective consciousness.
Additional works are on display at the Italian Academy, 1161 Amsterdam.
