• Ideas
  • Feb 21, 2012

Field Trip: Phnom Penh

In January, ArtAsiaPacific journeyed to Phnom Penh to visit the burgeoning art scene, comprised of small nonprofit art spaces, café-cum-galleries and artists’ studios. The weather was ideal: sunny and dry, with temperatures averaging 28 degrees Celsius throughout the day. All you needed really was a hat and a potent mosquito repellant. Although there were tourists from all corners of the globe, most visitors just drop into Cambodia’s capital and largest city for a day before continuing on their cultural pilgrimage to one of the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia, the Angkor Wat temples in Siem Reap.

It is hard to ignore the recent genocide of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians under the Communist Party of Kampuchea, aka the Khmer Rouge, who seized control of Cambodia from 1975–1979. However, a small, but growing group of artists and arts workers strive to create a community where they can openly address memories of the dark past as well as create their own forms of contemporary art in which tradition and innovation are deeply intertwined.