About the Artist
Ms. Choulay MECH (b. 1992, Kandal Province) lives and works in Phnom Penh. She is an artist, documentary filmmaker, and freelance journalist. Her passion for the job, particularly on environmental and animal rights issues, and she has a sensitivity toward human-interest storytelling.
She trained in journalism with the Cambodian Center for Independent Media. Her reporting has been published in Southeast Asia Globe, Voice of Democracy and CamboJA News. She also contributed reporting to a 2020 article about Cambodian mental health facilities for the Washington Post. She did a nice feature about the changing lives of fishing communities living on floating villages around the country’s biggest lake and river system, Tonle Sap.
She has a strong background in photography and video production as well; she’s had photo exhibitions and completed one-year extensive training in documentary film production at Bophana Audiovisual Resources Center, directing a short film “My Home” about elephant conservation in Mondulkiri, Cambodia. In 2020, she received an award from Creative Generation 4 Awards. The following year, she got four grants: one from Angkor Photo Festival, the second from Citizen Engaged in Environmental Justice for all (CEEJA), the third from SUMERNET for media – research partnership for environment reporting, and the last one it from the Mekong Data-Journalism Fellowship. In 2023, she was selected as an Angkor Photo Festival fellow.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chouly.mech
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mechchouly/
Website: https://ccva.art/artists/mech-choulay/
About the Residency
I see dead leaves drop from the trees every morning at Rimbun Dahan. These dead leaves really attracted my eyes because of their unique and original form, colours and textures. I started to wonder, what can I do to transform this dead leaf into a work of art that could speak about the forest and water?
In the day time, I hear the sound of birds chirping, I see the monkeys eating bananas and sharing food with their babies. Squirrels jump around freely and peacefully because no one would harm them. At night, some non-human friends visit me — butterflies, grasshoppers, bats.
Yet, such an oasis is a rare occurrence in the urban world!
Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we can’t eat money – Alanis Obomsawin.
Cambodia used to be covered by lush green forests but now it is overwhelmed by unhealthy development that is impacting the vulnerable people, animals and nature. When we have air we can’t breathe in, fruits we can’t eat, rain that we can’t play in, and water that is undrinkable, sooner and later we will all die. When we lack understanding and knowledge of forest life, it is very hard for us to love and care for the forest. As the Khmer proverb goes “រក្សាទុកព្រៃឈើ អ្នកនឹងមិនខ្វះអុសដុត”, translated as “save the forest and you will not run out of wood fire” — forest is part of the ecosystems that we can’t live without them, but they can live without us. From the beginning to the end, forests are completely useful even when they are dead, they are still useful as nourishment to the earth.
To understand more about human relationship with nature in urbanity, I went to visit the Mah Meri indigenous community to learn about their history and cultural practices. The warm and hospitable Mah Meri indigenous people shared with me generously and brought me to the sea, river and its surrounding mangrove forests which holds great significance to their culture and ritualistic practices. They gifted me with their traditional handicrafts such as crowns, birds and flowers made from wild palm trees unique to their local forest. Along the way from Mah Meri Village to Rimbun Dahan, there are beautiful mountains and green forests alongside tall buildings. Such landscape made me become wishful for Cambodia’s future development, I hope we will be able to develop in a healthy and sustainable way.
