Some people have witnessed the killing of their husbands, or they survived other horrific things. My sister is a widow but her husband was killed after the Khmer Rouge. There are different periods in which violence has occurred, and differences in how these women became widowed and how they survived afterwards.

I think every person has a unique story to tell and we each have the different life events that happen to us and sometimes we may feel sympathetic toward a certain aspect of that life event.

I met Mary [Hamill] in New York at my exhibition and when I told her about my oral history project she asked, "Would it be possible to incorporate visual art?" My sister stitches pillowcases, which led to Mary suggesting using cyanotype on them. I originally thought of the idea of pillowcases because when people get married, they have the bride and the groom lay their hands on each other's pillows while their relatives tie ribbons on their wrists. And then on the bed you usually have two pillows - one for yourself and one for your loved one - so when one is gone, one pillow remains.

I used to despair about the condition of the world, to feel a sense of hopelessness; now I find more and more that I need to focus on what I can do, however little it is, to help others.

It's like you're organically developing yourself, moving out, metamorphosing into other forms depending on where you are, what you're doing at the time, how you want to play on things.

I don't approach my writing or my work from an academic or analytical point of view. I do it for myself.

I've been coming to Cambodia off and on, six months of the year usually.