"Values" 2022

The Values to reflect the voices of women and want to delve deeper into the mindset related to traditional culture on Cambodian women since ancient times and continuing to have a profound effect on the freedom of expression of women today. The perception that women do not have the ability to perform various tasks better than being a housewife has become a short slogan in Cambodian society that still influences the majority of Cambodian women. That’s I would like to seek the support of women in general to express their feelings to find out how to turn those negative thoughts.

We need always to consider the values of (indigenous) women in societies and why they should be explored and explicated. It is more necessary to consider this question, in view of the fact that many people, including women, under the colonization of cultures, conventions, socially-construct-masculinity, and male dominated-politics, are inclined to doubt whether women, their values, and rights are of significance in our contemporary world the latest development in Iran and the standing up of Iranian women and girls for their rights in the face of inequality, oppression, and discrimination makes the question even more relevant.

Has its genesis in One Hundred Hands, a 2020 art project conducted with a group of women from my village in Siem Reap, in which my mother and I pondered upon the conditions of Cambodian-indigenous women, values is a series dedicated to the life, stories, and culture of highlander women and girls of Mondulkiri in the northeastern corridor of Cambodia. In one of our conversations at the workshop of One Hundred Hands, my mother asked, “what are the responsibilities of indigenous women to their community? Furthermore, do they receive the respects they deserve from their peers and community compared to Khmer women?” With this in mind, like an ethnographer, I embarked on a journey to the Mondulkiri to have these questions answered while spending time in the community and interviewing women I encountered. Similar approaches to that of One Hundred Hands, this journey saw me conducting qualitative research, community workshop, and visual art production.