When I was in the sixth grade my friend and I always won writing contests, and we read a lot of books. We were always the ones that read the most books in class. I thought about writing but visual arts weren't part of my vocabulary.

In Cambodian culture the male figure in the family is important; when you lose your husband you lose your economic ability to survive.

How am I placing myself in the world of other people around me? For me, I feel that I am not really alone, that others can feel it too. I see art in this way.

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.

When you make art, those things change shape into something else. It's transformation into a body of different visual elements.

I am a community social psychologist and a lot of my work deals with social work and helping people overcoming addiction and trauma.

I think there are things I can't write in English that I wish I could write in Khmer.