About Mekong Cultural Hub
Our mission is to empower diverse cultural practitioners to bring their visions for an inclusive, sustainable Mekong Region to life. Since 2018, we have connected more than 150 practitioners from the region for professional exchange, co-creation and collaboration.
Mekong Cultural Hub (MCH) works with people whose own work is at the intersection of arts and society. We initiate projects and work on collaborations all around Asia. Our priority focus countries are Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Background
MCH addresses a systemic lack of connectivity among artists and cultural practitioners in Southeast Asia and the Mekong Region. After an initial mapping project, we identified that individual cultural practitioners, artists, and arts organizations in the Mekong Region share many of the same interests, priorities, challenges and constraints. These challenges range from a lack of resources, threats to sustainability and the environment, sensitive social and political contexts, limited access to in-country training and development, and few opportunities to exchange knowledge and collaborate with peers from neighboring countries.
Our aim is to develop and connect resources and experience from across the region, building bridges and creating spaces for reflection and innovation so emerging artists and arts leaders can collectively create, influence, and transform the contexts in which they are living and working.
MCH is a sister organisation of Cambodian Living Arts, which has been working in Cambodia since 1998, and Living Arts International which is a new organization that initiates policy-driven, collaborative and transnational cultural actions, inspired by the resilience of arts communities in post-conflict contexts. The three organizations share the belief that arts are at the heart of a vital society, and this spirit is reflected throughout our programs. MCH grew out of CLA’s Living Arts Fellows program and our involvement in the Young Cultural Innovators program of Salzburg Global Seminar.
Meet the team
At MCH are a small team so we all share our time, skills and knowledge – playing different roles as needed to create the best experiences we can for our fellows and our partners. We work with an incredible network of generous, creative and passionate people. We are very committed to working in ways that make use of the talents and experiences of our fellows, and creating environments that will put people at ease and create a fruitful exchange, while above all responding to the context in which they are working. Because of this commitment, we as a team are also constantly learning and growing and challenging ourselves – which makes MCH a great place to work and a place for fun experiments!
Frances RUDGARD
Frances is Director of MCH and is responsible for some big picture things like strategy, planning, fundraising and budgeting, as well as getting involved in programs and projects doing things that range from recruiting and selecting participants, to working directly with our Fellows and representatives on their projects or in sessions, or being the zoom host and notetaker. She is a perceptive, reflective and witty person who is thoughtful and supportive for colleagues’ development. Ownership and trust become MCH team spirit because she embodies generosity in sharing her knowledge and passion for supporting cultural practitioners and her own colleagues to have advanced learning and benefits from work and personal lives.
Before setting up MCH in 2017, Frances worked full time for Cambodian Living Arts (CLA), where she is still the Managing Director (sharing her time with MCH). It was Frances’ work at CLA, especially running and co-facilitating the Living Arts Fellows cultural leadership program, and building up networks in South East Asia, that led to us seeing the need and opportunity to start MCH.
Frances lived in Phnom Penh from 2010-2019, and for her first two years there she worked for a social enterprise that provided low cost consultancy on fundraising, organizational development and marketing to grassroots NGOs. That’s how Frances first got to know Cambodian Living Arts, and joined the team there in 2012. Before that she lived in England (where she comes from) and worked in bid management.
Frances is a trustee of SAVVY Theatre, Croydon, UK.
Jennifer LEE
Jennifer first encountered MCH as a fellow in 2017 and officially joined the team as a Program Coordinator from summer of 2018. She is responsible for Program development, implementation and coordination; Project management, reviewing and reporting. Jennifer has a real talent for paying attention to people. She can help you see your strengths or realize your ideas or help you learn something about yourself which you might not have known before. She is also great at balancing reflection and action. She will help you think through your questions and your challenges – but you will always keep moving forward and doing something. Jennifer always puts our Fellows first, and never forgets why we are doing what we do and who we do it for.
As a project manager/producer, event and festival coordinator, house manager and producer in the field of theatre and culture with over 20 years of experiences, Jennifer is experienced in Designing and Facilitating workshops and training courses, including audience development, theatre service, creative project management and program planning; Collaboration and Coordination for productions, events and festivals with partners from different countries and overseas. In recent years, her main focus are advocating sustainable eco-system for cultural industry, social engagement of arts, multiple mechanisms for talent incubation, cross-cultural learning/understanding, and regional cultural exchange and collaboration.
Based in Taipei, Jennifer is the Board of Directors of Taiwan Association of Theatre Technology (TATT). She taught “Production Management” and “Arts Marketing” in three colleges from 2008 till 2019. She was the Project Manager of the Preparatory Office of Taipei Performing Arts Center from 2013 till 2015, and the Director of the Production Team at Hi-Tech Workshop company from 2001 till 2011.
Jennifer has a MA degree in Cultural Policy and Arts Management.
PHAM Ut Quyen
Quyen joined MCH in December 2020 as Communication Officer. She is responsible for planning and implementing the organization’s communication campaign, connecting between MCH and our partners, fellows, friends and followers. Quyen is so curious and wants to dive in and get to know our fellows, their stories and their motivations. Quyen is enthusiastic and embraces new experiences. She brings friendly, open and honest energy to everything she joins.
Quyen had backgrounds in Journalism and Communication and in Painting. She works as an independent writer, translator, and art and cultural coordinator and organizer. Her main focus is studying the Vietnam Contemporary art ecology putting in the general context of Southeast Asia and its expansion into Asia. As an art and cultural coordinator and organizer, she has been working as a program manager at Heritage Space – an independent art space in Hanoi – since 2018, where she runs an annual art residency program called Month of Art Practice which invites international artists to come working and exchanging with the young local artists. She also gets involved in planning and operating multidisciplinary creative events and projects with other art centers in the city. From December 2020 Quyen has worked as Communication Officer at Mekong Cultural Hub – an initiative which offers personal and professional development opportunities for creative cultural practitioners in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand and Taiwan. She is currently studying the International Master of the Arts Program in Cultural and Creative Industries (IMCCI) at Taipei National University of the Arts.
Email: quyen@mekongculturalhub.org
Contact us
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