Puppets Take Over Cambodia’s Siem Reap

A clouded leopard at the 2012 Giant Puppet Project parade in Siem Reap, Cambodia. (Giant Puppet Project)

February 20, 2013
By Lina Goldberg
Wall Street Journal

Pub Street, in the middle of Siem Reap’s Old Market area, is always busy during January and February, Cambodia’s high season for tourism. But it becomes a boisterous, night-time carnival when it’s taken over by the Giant Puppet Project, a parade of huge glowing figures up to 30 meters long, held aloft by the local children who’ve helped make them.

For this year’s parade, which takes place on Saturday, more than 600 children are taking part in making and marching with the puppets. Many are equipped with sound, including a cawing vulture, hissing cobra and croaking frog.

The Giant Puppet Project is Cambodia’s largest community arts effort, bringing together volunteers, artists and Khmer children for a month of workshops that culminate in the parade. It began in 2007 when Jig Cochrane, a visiting British artist working with two expats in Siem Reap, held a puppet-making workshop for local children. They wanted to share their handiwork with the town, and the idea for the parade was born.

Now in its seventh year, the project helps children learn about their country’s wildlife and culture while they create the figures, which represent folk-tale legends, endangered indigenous animals and Cambodian cultural figures. Fifteen non-profits are participating, including the Cambodian Landmine Museum Relief Facility and Friends International.

Earlier this month, a crew of artists came to Cambodia to hold workshops for students at Phare Ponleu Selpak Art School in nearby Battambang. Now those students have come to Siem Reap to teach the town’s children the art of making puppets, drawing on Asian traditions of puppetry and lantern-making.

Thirty to 60 children work on each puppet, crafting them from local rattan, which is traditionally used for basket-making, plus paper and masking tape. The goal is to make the puppets as big as possible, while still light enough to be carried or wheeled by the children, who also make matching hats they’ll wear during the parade.

“We have international artists with puppetry skills, experience with community arts and animatronics. We have set designers, fashion designers and award-winning artists from Battambang,” says Mr. Cochrane, now the project’s artistic director. “It’s a real skill exchange.”

The 2013 parade will feature representations of the slow loris, a pygmy Cambodian primate, and Sovann Maccha, the green-tailed mermaid princess from Cambodian legend. Puppets from previous parades have included a clouded leopard, the Cambodian artist Svay Ken and a snub-nosed Irrawaddy dolphin made entirely from used plastic water bottles, which lent the puppet an ethereal glow as it towered over the dozens of children leading its way through the parade.

More than 12,000 people are expected to line the roads of Siem Reap to watch. “More and more local people are coming forward to volunteer. They are eager to be part of it,” says Stuart Cochlin, Giant Puppet’s project director.