AIDS AND ART
Born in Cambodia and educated in the US, Chath pierSath is a poet and an artist who has become the voice of AIDS victims
By Lekha J Shankar
The Nation (July 11, 2004)
AIDS IS BIG and spreading, and I worry that it will become the second killing fields in my country," says Chath pierSath, a soft-spoken Cambodian poet-artist whose solo exhibition at the 'Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand this month heralds the World Aids Conference in Bangkok.
Chath's 20 acrylic works about Aids Victims are accompanied by poems about their suffering.
"I don't have money, I don't have a life, I have AIDS," says one poem. "Where is the Cure?" is the title of another poem.
"It was too late to practice safe sex. It was silly to be monogamous," states a third, referring to Chath's married brother Thay Uy, who haunted brothels and died of Aids.
Chath's other brother was killed by the Khmer Rouge, while his father died in the war against the Vietnamese. It was a traumatic childhood and the artist, one of a family of nine, escaped to the US as refugee when he was 11. He earned a degree in International Service and Third World development from New College of California, always planning to return to his homeland.
"I never felt comfortable in the US and lived there only to equip myself with skills that I could use in my birth land," says Chath, proudly brandishing his Cambodian krama scarf.
Chath returned to Cambodia 16 years later, in 1994, only to suffer a greater identity crisis.
"While I was a second-class citizen in the US, I was considered a foreigner in my country," he says. "They saw me as rich and advantaged, while they were in dire poverty."
This was especially so in his village of Kop Nymit, where the sights and smells triggered painful memories of his childhood. These later led to a spate of poetry.
Chath worked as a volunteer with a human rights organization in Phnom Penh for two years, helping build up its staff and writing grant proposals in English.
This was also the time he looked after his Aids stricken brother and watched him die.
"I remember the first thing he did when I returned from the US was to take me to a brothel," the artist recalls.
Chath returned to the US a disturbed man and that's when his paintings and poetry came about. "My head was bursting," he says.
"I painted a series of portraits about all the people I'd met and their trauma," he says. The oil and acrylic works were shown at an exhibition in Rhode Island under the title ''The Children of Tuol Sleng". Though Chath had never studied painting, he picked up the brush to exorcise his memories.
"I mostly did them on scrap wood from the garbage," he says. "My portraits, like my poems, are personal, but reach out to humanity as they deal with people who are sick, vulnerable and frightened."
As for his writing, Chath explains, "I was an introvert as a kid and "wrote a diary about issues that bothered me.
"I did not feel lonely as long as I had my writing."
In college, he started writing poetry. In fact, he compiled a whole book of poetry, though it was never published.
"They dealt with the holocaust, my travels, the suffering of other people. Although they are personal, my poems, like my portraits, are not about me but others," he says.
Chath later did a master's degree in community social psychology at the University of Massachusetts.
"Social psychology is not clinical psychology but focuses on empowering people in a community;" he says. Since Massachusetts has a huge Cambodian community - the second largest outside Cambodia, apart from California - Chath worked with the community there, only to find that "they had their own problems - cultural identity, confused youngsters, gang wars".
Last year Chath returned to Cambodia and immersed himself in the community again. This time the self-professed homosexual decided to focus on Aids programs, as well as on the gay, bisexual and transgender community, who are very marginalized in the country.
"While they are popular figures in movies and soap operas they're not really accepted in society," hath says. So, one of the first things he did in Phnom Penh was to organize a "pride party."
"They don't even have a place to meet," he explains, which was why he was ecstatic about the recent opening of the first gay bar in Phnom Penh.
Chath is now mobilizing support to set up an organization where he can help the gay community learn different skills.
"They are creative people and this creativity needs to be channeled so that they're not stuck to the sex industry," he says. "But all this needs money." That's why Chath is returning to the US to look for donors.
"I want to work with my people," he declares. "I want to identify their needs and a part of the process of change. I see the bad and the good in my country. The people are going through a healing process after the traumas of war and genocide. But the government is not doing enough to pull them through."
Still he is encouraged by the existence of many grassroots movements, including women, health and civil activist groups. He is also bowled over by the "amazing resilience" of the Khmer people.
"As long as this spirit is alive, there's hope behind the hopelessness," he says.