LinDa Saphan (born 1975) is a Cambodian artist and

social anthropologist Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...

. Born in

Phnom Penh Phnom Penh is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Cambodia, most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since 1865 and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its political, economic, industr ...

, she grew up in Canada and graduated in France. She has supported women artists from Cambodia, co-organizing the first Visual Arts Open festival celebrating Cambodian artists in 2005. Her recent art work had included textiles and embroidery. As an academic, she is currently assistant professor of sociology at

Paris Nanterre University Paris Nanterre University (), formerly University of Paris West, Paris-X and commonly referred to as Nanterre, is a public research university based in Nanterre, Hauts-de-Seine, France, in the Paris metropolitan area. It is one of the most pres ...

Biography

Born in Phnom Penh in 1975, she and her mother fled to Canada in 1982 in order to escape the

Khmer Rouge The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and by extension to Democratic Kampuchea, which ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by Norodom Sihano ...

. Brought up in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

, she was made to feel an outsider as the only Asian and Protestant student in the high school she attended. In 2005, together with Sopheap Pich and Erin Gleeson, Saphan organized the Visual Arts Open festival and art exhibition at the New Art Gallery in Phnom Penh, presenting 19 contemporary artists. The exhibition was considered to represent an important turning point in the recent history of Cambodian art. It presented works from a wide variety of artists. Two were elderly gentlemen: Van Nath (who had survived imprisonment in the Khmer Rouge Tuol Sleng jail) and Svay Ken who presented still lifes of everyday things. The younger generation from the 1970s was represented by Leang Seckon, who attended at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and the exhibition organizers Saphan and Sopheap Pich. The latter, both refugees, were educated in Canada, the United States and France. Representing the returning diaspora, Saphan exhibited a series inspired by Cambodian sign art. It consists of national celebrities whose faces are repainted in white, reflecting their innate beauty. She also presented a wooden box filled with pods of rice seed arranged to depict 1970, the year when the Americans began to bomb Cambodia. Each pod displays a photograph of someone framed in white paint, the Buddhist colour of mourning. Visual Arts Open turned out to be a resounding success. After running for three weeks in Phnom Penh, the exhibition travelled to weekend venues around the city, including galleries, restaurants and stores. It was attended by hundreds of visitors and the artists themselves were able to sell their works for a total of more than US$15,000. In 2006, Saphan set up the Selapak Neari programme which encouraged young artists to collaborate and exhibit their works. In particular, her efforts have assisted women artists throughout Cambodia. Saphan completed her studies in sociology and anthropology with a Ph.D. from

in 2007. It resulted from her thesis " Renaissance des espaces publics à Phnom Pénh : processus d'appropriations urbaines et dynamiques de la citadinité des nouveaux habitants de la capitale cambodgienne" (Rebirth of public spaces in Phnom Penh: urban appropriations processes, dynamics of the new inhabitants of the Cambodian capital). While she was working on her thesis in Cambodia, Saphan met the Italian director John Pirozzi who was working on his film '' Don't Think I've Forgotten''. It celebrated Phnom Penh's golden age and she helped him to research the city's history and its earlier communities. The two married and had a daughter, Sothea, in 2010. In 2011, Saphan once again exhibited in Phnom Penh, presenting 21 drawings at the Bophana Centre under the title "Black is Black".

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Saphan, Linda 1975 births Living people Cambodian artists Cambodian women artists Cambodian sociologists Cambodian women scientists 20th-century Cambodian artists 21st-century Cambodian artists 21st-century Cambodian women 20th-century Cambodian women Embroiderers