Issue
Up Close: Sopheap Pich

Since returning to Phnom Penh in the early 2000s, Sopheap Pich has developed a unique sculptural practice. Often made out of locally harvested bamboo and rattan, his sensuous, biomorphic forms—representing internal organs, plants, architectural structures, or artillery shells—embody elements of Cambodia’s postwar history and culture, as well as the artist’s recollections of growing up under the Khmer Rouge regime before his family fled the country in 1979. Though steeped in bittersweet childhood nostalgia and age-old crafting techniques, Pich’s work weaves together an imaginative portrait of his homeland that connects tradition with modernity, and past with present.