Socheata Aing’s performances stem from a harmonious combination of elements deeply rooted in the practice of writing.
The artist nourishes each new performance with an often very personal story, which she shares through the writing of her Little Memoirs. This collection of texts, which she reactivates regularly during public readings, also contains the outline of her performances and invites further sharing of confidences. Indeed, Socheata Aing’s performances are all about the intimate and the public, about memories and emotions that are quite personal but also very common: the sadness of grief, the sweetness of love, childhood memories, the outrages of adulthood, as well as cultural heritage and its clichés.
The artist establishes an immediate communication with her audience members through the rituals she invites them to take part in, and which involve simple, daily actions such as chopping onions, eating a meal, dancing, or clapping hands. Several worlds coexist during these rituals: sports, partying, or religious tradition.
This communication with the audience, which almost reaches the point of communion, allows the artist to broaden perspectives, to avoid dwelling in a form of self-sufficient intimism and instead to turn her stories and specific emotions into a world of their own and to welcome otherness into them.

Translated by Lucy Pons, 2024

artists, writers, philosophers, authors

Óscar Muñoz, Estefania Peñafiel Loaiza, Francis Alÿs, Mona Hatoum, Dinh Q. Lê, Huang Yong Ping, Chen Zhen, Ryoko Sekiguchi, Patrick Neu, Vinciane Despret, David Altmejd, Yue Minjun, Dan Flavin, Patrick Beaulieu

materials and techniques

Performance, archives, images, videos, montage, paper, folding, models, food, found objects

tools

body, hands, voice, breath, video camera, editing

Gestures

Set in movement, reappropriate, lighten, transform, reveal, heal, honour, live

keywords

Inheritance, memory, transmission, ritual, endurance, stories, myths, anecdotes, partition, fragment, fragility, tears, laughter, salty, sweet, sour, bitter, spicy

Books

Anecdotes, Claire de Ribaupierre
Mythologie, Homère
Perdre sa culture, David Berliner
Une brève histoire des lignes, Tim Ingold
Aux Bonheurs des morts, Vinciane Despret
Les morts à l’œuvre, Vinciane Despret
Fade, Ryoko Sekiguchi
Nagori, Nostalgie de la séparation, Ryoko Sekiguchi
Quand tu écouteras cette chanson, Lola Lafon

movies

La 36ème Chambre de Shaolin, Liu Chia-Liang
Drunken Master, Yuen Woo-Ping
Combat de Maître, Liu Chia-Liang
Rocky (I, II, III, IV, V, VI), Sylvester Stallone

quotes

« Prolonger une existence et la prolonger autrement, n’est-ce pas cela hériter ? », Vinciane Despret, Au bonheur des morts, 2017
« L’anecdote permet de donner du sens, de s’approprier le monde, de le faire sien et de ne pas en être possédé : c’est un acte d’individualisation. […] L’anecdote se présente comme un petit bond, un instantané, un morceau de narration, qui fixe et retient l’essence de l’être et des choses », Claire de Ribaupierre, Anecdote, 2007