My commitment to the art community
The commitment of my art work is more than a personal identity research, the impact upon the art students and professional artists and among the Cambodian Diasporas overseas is essential in their own reflection of identity. The “khmerness” issues from the Khmer Rouges lead to genocides. Under the years of pro-communism government afterward, censorship was at it fullest. Now a day, Cambodian people in the country self censor themselves either out of fear of the future or out of habit of silencing their opinions. To me it is more than promoting a Cambodian art scene and empowering a culture, it is about free expression where ever you are. My purpose from the very beginning was to create a binding relationship between artists of different dimensions, connecting them to exhibiting spaces and vice versa, and to show the public the most creative minds working in the visual arts nowadays in Cambodia.
For me Cambodian art should be considered as contemporary art and not simply as a nationalistic endeavour or as representing ideas of exoticism. Through my website and future curatorial efforts, I seek to exhibit the most prominent Cambodian artists in the country and outside. I also hope to create a sense of art community amongst the visual artists.
Present project : empowering women artists | s e l a p a k n e a r i. This project is supported by the ANA - Arts Network Asia, a group of independent artists, cultural workers and arts activist primarily from Southeast Asia that encourages collaboration, initiated or sited in Asia and carried out together with Asian artists.
To read more about this project