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The Genealogy of Bassac is the story of the conception, inhabitation, abandonment, rehabilitation, eviction and demolition of the White Building (1963-2017) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Born as a modernist architecture icon as part of the Bassac waterfront cultural district, the 300-meter long porous housing slab invited a remarkable range of personal adaptations as the survivors of the Khmer Rouge returned to the city in 1975.
In its first 14 years of life, the White Building had witnessed an enormous human tragedy with forced evacuation of cosmopolitan Phnom Penh, and the purge of culture workers. However, over the next 42 years, the White Building saw the remarkable regeneration not only of the district, but also the redefinition of modern Cambodian culture. But the White Building’s life was cut short, sacrificed to the casino economy of contemporary Cambodia. This book traces the family tree of this self-selecting extended family of the survivors of the Khmer genocide and a new generation with no memory of the tragedy.
Architects, artists, musicians, dancers, film makers, curators and historians tell the story of a life cut short, but a spirit that lives on. That spirit is in the making of the city as the ongoing cultural production of its residents, which presents a counter narrative for Phnom Penh, the Pearl of the Orient.
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Vyjayanthi Rao is an anthropologist and writer focusing on urban cultures, art and design. She is a visiting professor at Yale School Of Architecture, a Senior editor of the journal Public Culture and a member of the curatorial team of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2022. Previously, she held positions at City College of New York, New School for Social Research, Yale Center for International and Area Studies and at the University of Chicago, where she received her PhD in sociocultural anthropology.
From 2015 to 2020 she served as Co-Director of Terreform Center for Advanced Urban Research, a non-profit think tank based in New York where she also served on the Editorial Board of UR Books, an imprint of Terreform.
Erin Gleeson is an independent curator, writer and art historian based in Minneapolis. They direct the residency program FD13 which invites artists to Mní Sóta Makhóčhe to develop new work and present it live, most recently with Kablusiak and Yee I-Lann. Erin is a Lecturer in Critical Theory and Curatorial Studies within the Interdisciplinary Arts and Social Practice area of the Department of Art, University of Minnesota, an Advisor at Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, and a Mentor with Emerging Curator's Institute, Minneapolis. She has made exhibitions, programs and talks in collaboration with Experimenta Curator's Hub, Kolkata; Artspeak, Vancouver; Jeu de Paume, Paris; CAPC, Bordeaux; ifa, Berlin and Stuttgart; Asia Art Archive in America; MoMA, New York; Asia Culture Center, Gwangju; Independent Curators International; Center for Contemporary Art, Singapore, among others. Recent and upcoming curatorial projects include FREETIME, a performance directed by Anocha Suwichakornpong, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2021); Comeback Kid, a solo by Nicholas Grafia, Silverlens, Manila (2022), and the multi-venue program Deathpower (2023-24). Erin's writing has been published by Urban Research, Sternberg Press, Mousse, Art Asia Pacific, Gwangju Biennale, Documenta, among others. She was an Alphawood Scholar and holds an MA, Contemporary Art and Art Theory of Asia and Africa, SOAS, University of London (2015-2017). From 2011-2018, Erin was co-founding director and curator of SA SA BASSAC, a non-profit art center in Phnom Penh.
Brian McGrath is an architect with forty years of research and practice. The focus of his work is urban adaptation and change from social justice and ecological resilient perspectives. McGrath is a Principle Investigator in the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, where since 2005, he led the Urban Design Working Group. His books and publications include: Genealogy of Bassac (2021), Patch Atlas (2020),, Urban Design Ecologies Reader, (2012), Digital Modeling for Urban Design (2008), Transparent Cities (1994), Resilience in Ecology and Urban Design (2012), Growing Cities in a Shrinking World: The Challenges in India and China (2010), Sensing the 21st Century City (2007), and Cinemetrics: Architectural Drawing Today (2007).
McGrath served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Thailand in 1998-99 and an India China Institute Fellow in 2006-2008 and was Research Director in the joint US-EU exchange program Urbanisms of Inclusion, and more recently Scientific Advisor for Designing Brussels Ecosystem.
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