In a little over an hour, viewers are treated to Apsara (nymph) dance which was performed in the courts of the Angkor Empire, as well as dances from the ethnic minorities in the provinces. After the Khmer Rouge murdered many Royal Ballet dancers, the intricate and precise movements of this style and dance were recreated from carvings at Angkor Wat!
Read MoreThe museum serves as the headquarters for several NGOs dedicated to demining Cambodia, which still has thousands of land mines and unexploded artillery in the countryside. The explosives effect rural lives every day. Cambodia having the greatest number of amputees in the world, attributable to these devices that have lingered underground from violence related to the Khmer Rouge, and the US carpet-bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
Read MoreNo trip to Cambodia would be complete without a visit to the incredible Angkorian temple complex outside Siem Reap. The temples were started by Khmer King Suryavarman II in the 12th century, and are a contemporary wonder of the world and UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Read MoreArchitect and the program’s local coordinator, Pagna, took us on an architecture tour via cyclo (one-person cycle-seat contraptions) to orient us to the City’s historic and cultural past.
Read MoreI signed up to be part of the UW College of the Built Environment’s inaugural program in Phnom Penh. Six graduate students of landscape architecture flew out for spring quarter 2016 to conduct community-based outreach and design with an informal urban community called Pongro Senchey. Our first week involved a lot of orientation to the country, city, culture, language, and our host university.
Read MoreWe made it back to the bustling, dusty, smoggy capital of Phnom Penh. There are a lot of challenges here, Cambodia is home to the most NGOs of any country in the world. Institutionalized violence has left huge scars on the country and its physical and cultural landscapes. Conversations about history, landscape, architecture, art, and planning inevitably involve a distinction of before-and-after the cultural cleansing of the Khmer Rouge.
Read MoreMarch 23rd I took off for Phnom Penh to spend the term with professor Ben Spencer of the University of Washington, and five other graduate students in landscape architecture (more about that later). After landing, and going through the oddly casual Cambodian visa and customs procedure, I dropped most of my baggage at the professor’s house and hit the road with two other students for Kampot on the Preaek Tuek Chhu River. It is a more rural city and province known for their pepper farming!
Read More
