What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.

– Muriel Rukeyser

Artist Statement

            As an artist and a Cambodian Muslim transnational, I am professionally and personally drawn to themes of recuperation and reclamation.  My work synthesizes poetry, movement, video, and site-specific installations into hybrid explorations, often mapping new political and spiritual landscapes. Recalling that the oral tradition saved and preserved Cambodian art, I am inspired as an artist to seek those routes of memory. Memories surface through the body. Memories do not follow linear chronology. Artists have a power to bring out memories, stories, and moments that official history does not always account for. Artists also have a way of disrupting meta-narratives. I perform stories in an attempt to remember my ancestry, my memories, and my relationship to the spirit world. Accordingly, batik sarongs, Muslim prayer garments, my father’s PTSD panic attacks, my daughter’s pterodactyl-like noises, recollections and tales of “Home”, the displaced body, Butoh, my parents’ old photos from Cambodia, turmoil, and joy are all elements of my art. Although my work has increasingly shifted towards movement, dance, and installation, I have never abandoned writing.  Narratives continue to operate, alongside text and writing, as source materials for new works. Performing narratives is an act of social storytelling that contributes to collective healing. Performance and storytelling have become ways of bridging the interior and exterior space of self. This theme of externalizing my interior space is the thread that connects my early writings and performances with my current body of work. Currently, I perform in site-specific locations, often energetically “charged” spaces that utilize yards and yards of textile/fiber. For me, this material acts as an extension of skin, as a way for the surface of my body to extend into public spaces, and as a metaphoric device for stories to spread across an expanse. Rooted in autobiographical experiences my work chronicles my life, my family’s experiences, and my dreams. My work, in all its forms, acknowledges the solidarity of shared historical and diasporic struggles. As an art-maker, I am committed to artistic rigor and a dedicated catalyst for dialogue and change.