Creator
Phloeun Prim
Cambodian arts leader, executive director of Living Arts International and former executive director of Cambodian Living Arts.
Phloeun Prim is a Cambodian arts leader and the executive director of Living Arts International.[1][2] Its initiatives are Cambodian Living Arts (CLA) and the Mekong Cultural Hub.[1] He was born in 1976 in the countryside of Siem Reap and grew up in Canada.[3] CLA describes him as educated in Canada and shaped professionally in Cambodia, with 25 years of experience helping culture-focused nonprofits build sustainable hybrid business models.[2]
Early life
Prim left Cambodia at the age of three, spent a few months in a refugee camp and then went to Canada, where he grew up in Montreal and studied business and international management.[3][4] He moved back to Cambodia in 1998, as part of a European Union project to reunite artisans with their heritage and culture.[4]
Artisans d'Angkor
Prim was part of the founding team of Artisans d'Angkor and worked there for almost ten years as commercial director and chief operating officer.[2] The program trained young people from rural areas in traditional crafts and created a market for their work.[1] In the episode he lists stone carving, wood carving, lacquerware and silk.[3] Salzburg Global gives its growth as 50 artisans at first and more than 1,000 artisans and staff later.[4] He later returned to serve on its board.[2]
Cambodian Living Arts
Prim left Artisans d'Angkor in 2008 to join Cambodian Living Arts as executive director.[2] CLA credits him with its change from a focus on preserving traditional arts to a catalyst institution for the arts sector.[2] Georgetown University's Global Lab quotes him as proud to be part of the movement in Cambodia to use the arts for healing, social transformation and economic development.[5]
In the spring of 2013 he led Season of Cambodia, a festival of Cambodian music, film, art and dance at venues across New York City.[2] He told Voice of America that the aim was for Cambodia to be known for its arts and culture, not only for the Killing Fields.[6] CLA also lists the production of Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia, which premiered at the Melbourne Arts Centre, among the work of his years there.[2]
Living Arts International
Living Arts International was registered in 2014, which allowed the work to grow beyond Cambodia through the Mekong Cultural Hub; CLA says the hub has more than 300 fellows.[2] Prim led CLA's change into Living Arts International, and both CLA and the hub are now its initiatives.[1] He teaches a course, "Arts for Transformation", each year in the January term at New York University Abu Dhabi.[2] His latest project, "An AI of Our Own", looks at the oral traditions of communities of the Global South and who owns and governs the data made from them.[2][3]
Interviews
In 2014 Prim told Salzburg Global that Cambodia had to start from scratch in rebuilding its arts.[4]
He was the guest of the third episode of The Threaded Path, "Rooted, Not Frozen," released on October 2, 2026. Over 58 minutes he talks with Amara Goel about his return to Cambodia, three chapters of Cambodian arts since the late 1990s, and letting traditions live and move.[3]
Works
No works on this site name this creator yet.
Appears in
- Rooted, Not Frozen (The Threaded Path, October 2026)
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Mekong Cultural Hub, Phloeun Prim
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 Cambodian Living Arts, Phloeun Prim: Visionary Leader in Arts and Culture (2026)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 The Threaded Path Podcast, Rooted, Not Frozen, with Phloeun Prim (YouTube, October 2, 2026)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Salzburg Global Seminar, Alex Jackson, Phloeun Prim: Cambodia had to start from scratch (April 24, 2014)
- ↑ Georgetown University, Global Lab, Phloeun Prim (2017)
- ↑ VOA Learning English, New York Celebrates the Arts of Cambodia (May 17, 2013)