Biography
Vandy Rattana (Born 1980, Phnom Penh) began photographing as a form of historical continuity, concerned with the lack of physical documentation of personal stories, traits and unofficial monuments of his culture. His early serial works straddled the line between strict photojournalism and conceptual practice and displayed in common a preoccupation with the everyday as experienced by the average Cambodian. While Vandy’s early series chronicled the contemporary moment while creating a more comprehensive archive for future generations, his recent work is critical of historiography, pivoting towards fiction. Vandy’s recent solo exhibitions include MONOLOGUE, CAPC, Bordeaux, France and Jeu de Paume, Paris, France (2015); Bomb Ponds, Asia Society, NYC, USA (2013). Recent group exhibitions include Today of Yesterday, Yamamoto Gendai, Tokyo, Japan; Time of Others, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan / National Museum of Art, Osaka; Documenting as Method: Photography in Southeast Asia, Chiang Mai Photo Festival 2015, Chiang Mai University Art Center, Thailand; The Khmer Rouge and the consequences. Documentation as artistic memory work, Akademie der Kunst, Berlin, Germany (2015); In the Aftermath of Trauma: Contemporary Video Installations, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St Louis, USA (2014), and No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia, Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, Asia Society, Hong Kong (2013). He is a 2015 nominee of the Hugo Boss Asian Art Prize.
