Bridgebuild Exchange: Laos – Cambodia
This Bridgebuild Exchange is part of the Connections Fellowship program. It is awarded to cultural practitioners who are ready to expand their networks regionally, and it provides them with support including mentorship around networking, attendance at a regional networking platform, and an exchange to another country. In 2025, four Laos artists were nominated and selected to take part of the program since August and ended in December.
“This wasn’t just about visiting new places; it was about connecting with our hearts and minds to build a stronger bridge across the Mekong region. Even though the path can be challenging, we are committed to moving forward together through art and culture.”
MCH invited her to accompany the four Connections Fellows. She’s a senior artist and teacher from Vientiane, who has been an MCH Fellow since 2022. Her role is to support the group during the exchange and to work with MCH’s local partner Cambodian Living Arts (Tola) to facilitate fruitful dialogues between the Laos and Cambodian artists.
Exchange trip
From December 8th to 12th 2025, five artists from Laos visited Phnom Penh to exchange with Cambodian artists, creatives and cultural organisations. The exchange is organised by Mekong Cultural Hub, in collaboration with Cambodian Living Arts, and with support from SDC Laos. The goals of this visit including introducing the Cambodian arts ecosystem to the Laos artists, particularly highlighting projects and practices that might inspire new possibilities in Laos, building networks and connection between artists in Cambodia and Laos, and identifying opportunities for potential future cooperation between arts communities in Laos and Cambodia.
The Laos artists met Cambodian Living Arts and CICADA to get the big picture of Cambodia and its arts ecosystem. Visit exhibitions at Bophana Audiovisual Resource Centercenter and F3. They also met artists, creativity makers and designers from Ti Samjort, Anti-archive, Remade in Cambodia, Studio Images, and Khmer Art Action.
Five Laos artists and local coordinator Tola met for sharing their observations, questions and reflections as a group during the trip. Tola shared her observation of hosting the Laos artists and supported and facilitated their exchange with Cambodian arts practitioners: she saw their commitment and focus and she found them have very good and critical questions and feedback. She also heard they have a lot of takeaway, including they have some actions to take inspired by what Cambodian artists are facing and doing for their peers and future arts community.
Luck shared her experience of seeing Cambodia firsthand allowed me to replace vague perceptions with a clear, authentic experience. I was deeply moved by the participants’ eagerness to learn and the warm hospitality of the Cambodian artists, who facilitated our visit perfectly.” Ding is inspired by how film making and training are worked by the peers he met in Phnom Penh and encouraged him to take more actions in his film work. Salyna wants to have more interactions with her craft community in Luang Prabang due to she witnessed how the collective power and solidarity from the peer to peer support. Tounisa is very interested in how artists work collectively and learnt different modalities of arts collectives in Phnom Penh. Tam was inspired by arts group they met and found connections they would continue to collaborate from the trip.
Stay curious and open made them gained a lot from the exchange they made in the trip. They all expressed this trip had impacts on their ways of thinking and doing in their practice and they were eager to share what they have learnt and reflected with their Laos peers. Through the sharing session, their finding and learning from Cambodian artists and organisations would not only stay with them but also be shared to their peers.
Photo Gallery
