Anida Yoeu Ali: The Buddhist Bug

Marking the first major solo exhibition of the series in the U.S., The Buddhist Bug is an internationally-acclaimed and expansive performance project that brings together myth, humor, spiritual inquiry, and the lived experience of displacement. About Anida Yoeu Ali’s The Buddhist Bug is an expansive performance project that brings together myth, humor, spiritual inquiry, and the lived experience of displacement. At its center is a monumental saffron-colored creature, nearly 328 feet in length, with a human face tightly framed in cloth at one end and a pair of feet at the other. Activated through performance, photography, and video, The Buddhist Bug moves through markets, temples, streets, rural landscapes, and other social spaces across Cambodia. The work reflects Ali’s complex relationship to Cambodia, diasporic memory, and transnational belonging. Its brilliant orange evokes Buddhist monks’ robes, while the cloth surrounding the Bug’s female face recalls the hijab and points to the Cham Muslim community, an ethnic and religious minority in Cambodia to which Ali and her family belong. Through this layered form, Ali considers visibility and erasure, faith and cultural difference, homeland and exile. Read more Toggle Performance / Live Art Film / Video Photography