The Water Was Red

Joint Lab - November 25, 2014 by Susan Weinberg

During the joint session of the Artists' Lab, we gathered at the Katherine Nash Gallery where we had an opportunity to view the current show thinking making living, a show that explores the intersections between art, life and social engagement. Consistent with that focus we met with artist David Feinberg and Dr. Ellen Kennedy of World Without Genocide to view a DVD of Voice to Vision V titled Caught Between a Alligator and a Tiger.

The DVD explores the genocide in Cambodia through the artwork and experiences of Bunkean and Bhounna Chhun. Both Bunkean and Bounna lost many members of their family. They met after Cambodia and ultimately married and settled in Minneapolis.

In the film Bunkean and Bounna shared their stories as they painted. Water is a central image in the work of Burkean. He began his story with circles of blue water, later painting the water red because of all of the bodies that were dumped within it. Imagery such as a broken wagon wheel was used metaphorically to reflect his experience while Bounna worked with the image of a tiger in her work. Bunkean joined us after the film and answered questions from the group.

We then moved into the gallery where we broke into groups of four using a process termed The Continuous Line to reflect our response to genocide. We were asked to each draw a line on a sheet of paper and then pass it around our group, each person adding to it. The line was to express our response to the film. Lines represented such imagery as anger, weights, black holes and separation.

We then selected two of the images. We could cut out elements from other drawings ultimately consolidating our efforts into one drawing and adding to it as necessary. We gathered as a larger group and shared our effort and the response which led to its creation.

We were soon engaged in both the exercise and discussion of our response to genocide. It proved to be a successful exercise in processing and reinforcing our response to deeply emotional content.

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