KIMURA BYOL LEMOINE
(키무라 별 르뫈 - 木村 ビヨル レムワンー),
RAVY PUTH ពុទ្ធ រ៉ាវី
Seedless - Ajumma, 2021
KIMURA BYOL LEMOINE (키무라 별 르뫈 - 木村 ビヨル レムワンー)
100 ginkgo leaves and transparent plastic sleeves (reproduction), 39.37 x 39.37 "
OUR FOOD OUR RESISTANCE - Nom Pao នុំប៉ាវ, 2023
RAVY PUTH ពុទ្ធ រ៉ាវី
Digital illustration (reproduction), 33 x 24 "
CURATOR’S TEXT
The archiving of Asian diasporic narratives erased by colonial violence and oral memory are at the heart of the multidisciplinary artistic practices of Korean artist kimura byol lemoine (키무라 별 르뫈木村 ビヨル レムワンー) and Cambodian artist Ravy Puth ពុទ្ធ រ៉ាវី. Their work, imbued with a desire to revitalize their family histories and identities, leads us to reflect on the issues of eradicated memories and the construction of future collective memories for our communities.
The installation Seedless - Ajumma by kimura byol lemoine (키무라 별 르뫈 - 木村 ビヨル レムワンー) is composed of 100 leaves of ginkgo (은행나무), a tree widely cultivated in Asia, particularly in Korea. These leaves were carefully collected by hand by the artist, then subsequently inserted into transparent plastic sleeves and photographed. Seedless - Ajumma is a work dedicated to adoptive parents, and is part of the artist's critical and personal reflection on adoption, having themselves been adopted by a Belgian family at a young age. These seemingly delicate and harmless ginkgo leaves are a striking allegory for the international adoption system.
OUR FOOD OUR RESISTANCE - NOM PAO នុំប៉ាវ is an illustration by Ravy Puth with which we can spend long minutes observing all the magnificent graphic details. While Cambodian cultural archives were destroyed and burned in huge numbers during the autocratic Khmer Rouge regime of 1975-1979, many families like Ravy's rely on intergenerational memory and oral history to connect with their Cambodian identity. This work depicts precious moments shared between Ravy and her mother as they bake Cambodian dishes like NOM PAO នុំប៉ាវ. These small steamed buns are icons of Cambodian food and are also prepared differently in different parts of Asia, potentially provoking conversations about mixed identity.
The reappropriation of one's culture through the issues of adoption and burnt memory is a matter of survival, and this is what kimura and Ravy linger on with imaginations brimming with tenderness for their ancestors who still cradle them.
VIRTUAL TOUR - PROTOTYPE
The Art Urbain Montréal team, in collaboration with Archiv VR, is opening the doors to discover an experiment as a little surprise as part of the Mémoire de l’avenir exhibition. The experiment offers you a short moment of Augmented Reality in the studio of kimura byol lemoine (키무라 별 르뫈木村 ビヨル レムワンー), via your phone or our website. We're proud to be working on this novelty, linking art and technology.
KIMURA BYOL LEMOINE (키무라 별 르뫈 - 木村 ビヨル レムワンー) - BIOGRAPHY
(they)
kimura byol lemoine (키무라 별 르뫈木村 ビヨル レムワンー) is a conceptual feminist artist in multimedia, mainly video, calligraphy pop art, writing and collaborations that, from their experience, undeniably questions the binarity of gender, the perception of gender and racial identities, the linguistics in the voluntary or involuntary "loss" by translation and bodies as commercial objects. By giving voice and visibility to minorities, the archiving of narratives is a way of restoring the credibility of a non-eurocentric memory of identities.
Photo: Celica Sea
RAVY PUTH ពុទ្ធ រ៉ាវី - BIOGRAPHY
(she)
Ravy Puth ពុទ្ធ រ៉ាវី is a Montreal-based Cambodian illustrator. Imagery is her point of entry for finding the surviving stories of erasure: what unsuspected narratives lurk in archives? Where does their unveiling lead? How do memory and oblivion coexist? Drawing has become her landmark in the meandering confusion of growing up in the absence of narrative and representation, waltzing between three languages. Like a language in its own right, illustration enables her to communicate stories that were once buried when words were lacking in her mother tongue and those of the colonists. Illustration serves as a springboard for anchoring stories in and from her memory. The personal is political: sharing her experience is meant to be a window to anyone who recognizes they can exist outside the lens of whiteness. She trusts that following what we don't see or know yet goes a long way. Reviving intergenerational oral history between Cambodians through illustration is a quest she keeps close to her heart, because "nothing about us without us" (South African disability justice movement of the 90s).
She exhibited From Buried To Living Archives (2022) at Shifting Articulations of Asian-ness in Contemporary Canada. Imagining Best Of vinyls by Cambodian psychedelic rock legends (1960-70) is a way of reappropriating history. Resurrecting these artifacts whose disappearance was orchestrated counteracts the erasure of Cambodian bodies by Orientalism and the Khmer Rouge. She published her research Illustration as a Illustration as a Vessel to Access Portals of Sound Memory (2022) in Rejoinder Journal.
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