Pidan at Reyum

As I missed the Pidan exhibition opening earlier this week at the Reyum Gallery , whilst I was in the area this morning I paid a visit with Sophoin to find out a bit more about pidan, something which I was totally unaware of until recently. It's actually a piece of cloth that is traditionally hung above statues of the Buddha, so for years I've been visiting pagodas around the country and was oblivious to an artform in front of me, but which I didn't even notice! It can be made from different types of cloth of different colours, sizes and design but the best pidan is made from silk and is beautifully patterned, much of it coming from the old hol pidan silk-weavers of Takeo. The pidan exhibition at Reyum has some beautifully patterned pieces on show, information on how it is produced and a book has been published by Reyum and the Japanese-led Pidan Project Team to document this vanishing art.

Sophoin spots her favourite piece of pidan

The walls of Reyum are lined with examples of multi-coloured pidan

This busy scene has a variety of colourful characters included in its story

This is easy to spot, its Hanuman with Angkor also represented

This is part of the story of Prince Vessantara from the life story of Buddha

Elephants and temples feature heavily on this example of the pidan artform