COLLECTIONS

Mindfulnes

Edition 1/5+2AP

Cambodia
Kong Siden

Mindfulnes, 2021-2022, Single channel video, color with sound, 9’26”, 20 light boxes of digital art prints, 30 x 30 x 3 cm each
All images courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement

Mindfulness is a new multimedia work that combines video, audio, images and light through an interplay of colors, textures and movement. The work is formed in a circle with layers of images abstracted from hundreds of photographs of various scenes and objects from daily life. These natural textures are transformed into fragments that gather and spin like planets floating in the universe. They overlap​ and transperent, producing an explosion of colorful particles that float across the space—a spectacle that engrosses our mind, fortified by its aesthetic. 
 
The gradual changes of the motion in the video signify the natural process of evolution which requires an immense amount of time to adapt, in the same way we adapt to our social environment. This evolutionary process, in turn, is beautiful, fitting the needs of our transformation according to the time, context, and society in which we live. While at times it is also uncertain, which can leave us with a sense of sadness and remorse with the changes. 
 
Things cannot last forever; they get old and they change. Time and evolution are inevitable. Mindfulness is a work that imagines life's evolutionary experiences as pieces of color and texture. It allows the viewers to overcome realistic visuals and lead them to shadows of imagination and to discover personal experiences within the work.

About the Artist

Kong Siden (b. 1997, Phnom Penh, Cambodia) is an artist and interior designer and works as a designer and digital  coordinator at Sa Sa Art Projects. His artworks are produced across various media including photography, video, sculpture, light, and sound. Through his practice, he focuses on the contemporary human perspective, the environment, and the society he is living in. Siden graduated in Interior design from the Royal University of Fine Arts (Cambodia) in 2019 and has joined several contemporary art courses. In 2020 he was awarded the Creative Generation 3 Award for visual arts. He has exhibited in several group exhibitions including: “Invisible Voices: Treeline Artist Grants,” Siem Reap (2020), "Possibility, Transferring, Passing," Sa Sa Art Projects, Phnom Penh (2019), "Immerse," Sa Sa Art Projects, Phnom Penh (2018), "Beauty of the Dirty Water," Screening photos, Photo Phnom Penh Festival (2018), "Stories of Reality," Studio Images, IFC (2018), "People and Space," Studio Images, IFC (2018), and "Portraits," Studio Images, IFC (2018).

Editor: Aura Contemporary Art Foundation