• Society

An Art Installation Invites People to Leave Personal Messages, and They Do 

• By Michelle Vachon
• November 22, 2023 8:45 AM

PHNOM PENH — The exhibition at the Institut Francais (French Institute) in Phnom Penh ending with a performance on Nov. 24 may have little to do with the traditional concept of an art exhibition. But, in view of the way people have responded to it, it has fitted perfectly in today’s world in which people constantly connect through images and sounds on their phones.

In the first room, the installation of French artist Charlie Aubry has literally filled the space. Consisting of recycled objects he found in Phnom Penh—from spoons and cups to plastic wrapping, engine, electric wires and traffic signs—these are some of the objects we use or see every day without really noticing them, he said. 

In the second room, things have turned personal for visitors who decided to get involved in the installation that Jean-Baptiste Phou—an actor, stage manager and writer—has named “Murmures,” or whispers. After listening to the recording of Phou’s work “La langue de ma mere” (my mother’s tongue), they have been invited to record messages that become “stars” as their messages are added to the digital platform “Echoes from the Stars.” Those messages are to be “released” by Phou on Nov. 24 during a performance marking the end of the exhibition.

Phou came up with the idea of giving people the opportunity to leave messages because of his own experience that taught him that communicating with people, even in one’s own family, can be far from easy, Phou said during an interview.  

“[There had been] the communication problems I had had with my mother that I had attributed to language,” Phou said. His mother’s first language was Khmer and his mainly French as he grew up in France where his family had moved in the early 1970s due to the civil war in Cambodia. “But in fact, I realized while working on this project that, in the end, the real problem had not been the language but our relationship,” he said. “So, what I wanted to do with ‘Echoes from the Stars’ was to enable other people to symbolically make up for the lack of communication they had had by enabling them to send messages they never could send.”

People listen to Jean-Baptiste Phou’s work “La langue de ma mere” (my mother’s tongue). Photo: Joty Mousar / Institut français du Cambodge

And many have done so. More than 200 messages were left by people in several languages, Phou said. The exhibition room was set up in three sections: the middle section where people could listen to Phou’s work, a booth behind curtains to the left where people wishing to leave messages could do so, and a booth also behind curtains to the right where, whenever a person walked in, one of the recorded messages selected at random would be played.

People wanting to leave messages have had one minute to do so and, while some people have made jokes or general comments, others have taken this quite seriously. “Some people left farewell messages to people to whom they had not been able to say goodbye,” Phou said. “Others apologized to people they had hurt, and others declared their love to someone to whom they would not dare say it in person. There have been very, very touching messages.”

There also have been special moments when people go to the booth to hear messages. “One woman told me ‘this is exactly what I needed to hear,’ which really touched me because she did not really know what this installation was about,” Phou said.

The exhibition ends on Nov. 24 with a two-part event. At 6:00 pm in the cinema of the institute, eight participants to a workshop led by Phou and sound designer Vincent Villa will present a sound creation reflecting how complex communicating and what is left unsaid can be. And at 6:30 pm in the gardens of the French Institute, Phou will hold a performance based on the messages people have recorded during the exhibition and that will be “sent to the stars.”     

“For me, the most symbolic way to end this chapter was to create a work based on how people got involved in this,” Phou said. “This seems to have resonated with people, to enable them to say things, to express themselves in words. And I wanted to end the project by expressing this.”

For information on the event:

https://institutfrancais-cambodge.com/performance-murmures-aux-etoiles/#/