Context (CMS Context)
Krisna Uk started her PhD fieldwork in Southeast Asia in August 2007 and returned from Cambodia in June 2008. Her doctoral research ultimately focused on an in-depth study of a Jorai village, a Cambodian ethnic minority living in the heavily bombed province of Northeast of Cambodia, which also form parts of the Ho Chi Minh trail that encompasses Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

In the course of this research she has collected a wide range of objects that were locally made by ethnic Lao and Cambodian minorities who have had their communities heavily affected by regional conflicts and civil wars. Despite ethnic differences and geographical variety, these objects have in common their relation to the Indochina War and most particularly their propensity to materialise how people reproduce, create and re-invent the historical memory of the US bombing from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s.
She has also been visiting a few ethnic Lao villages, where people recycle war remnants into everyday objects. One such village was the focus of a paper that she wrote for the Department of Social Anthropology where the local blacksmith uses bomb metal to manufacture knives for his community as well as for neighbouring villagers. Each and every object is a testimony of how affected communities have dealt with the grievous past by means of artistic creation and craftsmanship. The objects reveal the extent of villagers' resilience as well as both their psychological and physical abilities to cope with the trauma of the conflicts and an everyday environment that is still littered with explosive remnants of war. In that sense, metal recycling, woodcarving and fabric weaving are the visible manifestations of human survival strategy. This opens new windows for further frameworks of analysis of the objects especially when used during ritual processes.
Event Date 13/5/2015
Author: maa

Description (CMS Description)
Knife with slightly curved wooden blade and flat leaf shaped metal blade. Made from bomb metal.
Event Date 13/5/2015
Author: maa