Asian Art Museum Highlights Sopheap Pich’s “Junk Nutrients”

The exhibition spotlights Sopheap Pich and Leang Seckon, whom the museum describes as two of Cambodia’s most internationally prominent artists, and has highlighted Pich’s ‘Junk Nutrients’.

Intricately constructed from bamboo, rattan, wire and salvaged discarded materials, ‘Junk Nutrients’ is presented by the museum as a reflection on environment, memory and modern life.

Pich uses natural materials and discarded objects to make tactile, abstract sculptures, which he sees as distillations of his remembrances and emotions. ‘Junk Nutrients’ brings bamboo and rattan together with wire and salvaged matter, retaining the materially varied construction described in the museum’s account.

The exhibition also includes work by Seckon, who builds collages from photographs, paint and recycled textiles. His collages contemplate the traumas of the past and the complexities of the present. Although their methods differ, the museum identifies both artists as transforming everyday materials from Cambodia in distinctive ways.

Born in the 1970s, Pich and Seckon lived through the Khmer Rouge genocide and emerged in the early 2000s as key figures in Cambodia’s artistic revival. The exhibition is organized by the Asian Art Museum. The museum has also shown its head conservator carefully examining ‘Junk Nutrients’.