Return Engagements: Contemporary Art’s Traumas of Modernity and History in Sai Gon and Phnom Penh

In Return Engagements artist and critic Viet Le examines contemporary art in Cambodia and Viet Nam to rethink the entwinement of militarization, trauma, diaspora, and modernity in Southeast Asian art. Highlighting artists tied to Phnom Penh and Sai Gon and drawing on a range of visual art as well as documentary and experimental films, Le points out that artists of Southeast Asian descent are often expected to address the twin traumas of armed conflict and modernization, and shows how desirable art on these themes is on international art markets. As the global art market fetishizes trauma and violence, artists strategically align their work with those tropes in ways that Le suggests allow them to reinvent such aesthetics and discursive spaces. By returning to and refashioning these themes, artists such as Tiffany Chung, Rithy Panh, and Sopheap Pich challenge categorizations of diasporic and local by situating themselves as insiders and outsiders relative to Cambodia and Viet Nam. By doing so, they disrupt dominant understandings of place, time, and belonging in contemporary art.