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“In the land of the
elephants”
Drawings by Srey Bandol
Opening reception,
April 3, 2003 |
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Reyum is pleased to announce the
opening of an exhibition and the publication of a
children’s book entitled “In the Land of the
Elephants”. The exhibition and book feature thirty
large pencil drawings by Srey Bandol which tell the
story of an elephant hunt in Rattanakiri Province,
Cambodia. These drawings, completed over a period of
six months, are remarkable for their attention to
texture and their spectacular renderings of light
and dark. Set together in a series, they tell a
story from the land of the elephants.
Long ago, a group of hunters set
off into the jungle to catch young elephants and
tame them for riding and dragging logs, taking with
them a young boy who is out on his first elephant
hunt. When the hunters have ridden their tame
elephants deep into the jungle, a storm comes up
scattering the hunters throughout the jungle. When
the sky clears, the boy is lost and cannot find the
other hunters. He wanders deeper and deeper into the
jungle, spending the night alone with his elephant.
After traversing the jungle for an indeterminate
time, the boy comes to a magical cave where he stays
with a monk who will eventually show him the way
home. By the time the boy comes home however, his
village is unrecognisable, and the boy and his
elephant decide to return to the jungle which,
through their wanderings, has become familiar.
Offering a deeply poetic account of
home, development, and change, this book is part of
an ongoing series of children’s books produced as a
collaborative project between the Kasumisou
Foundation and Reyum Publishing. The project aims to
promote literacy and a love of reading by supporting
the creation and broadest possible distribution of
original Khmer language children’s books. Profits
from the sales of each children’s book in the series
are used to finance new books as well as to fund the
donation of a significant portion of each print run
to reputable programs serving the most disadvantaged
of Cambodia’s children.
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