ADANA is a French-Cambodian artist and activist (artivist) who integrates art expression, psychological trauma and her personal experiences with social activism.

 

She launched her career with her first exhibition in New York in 2019 followed by 13 more international exhibitions, including in Paris, Brussels, Bangkok, Sydney and Phnom Penh. Adana has participated in several exhibitions where the sales of her art were donated to local NGOs, with one reaching $150,000 in fundraising for a psycho-social non-profit organization.

 

Her paintings have been collected by influential people such as Oscar winner actress Susan Sarandon,  Hollywood actress Annalynne McCord, internationally recognized music American composer Chloe Flower and Cambodian/American singer Laura Mam. Recently, the Hong Kong Sotheby’s director of private sales and business tycoon, Mr. Vattanac, acquired her paintings.

 

Concerning her social activism, Adana was shortlisted along with three other prominent artists, including Red Hong Yi, for Women of the Future Awards South East Asia in the category of Art and Culture. She was endorsed by the Minister of Women’s Affairs, and the Secretary-General of the Council for the Development of Cambodia. Recently, the Director of the Cambodian National Bank nominated her among Asia 21 young leaders.

 

Having spent most of her life in Cambodia, her first memories were the sound of shots in 1997, the crackle of automatic weapons and mortar explosions, the smell of gunpowder and the panic in her mother’s eyes. The trauma of Cambodian people, and its long term psychological consequences, comes not only from the Khmer Rouge genocide but more than 40 years of civil war and famine, physical and psychological torture, mass displacement and suffering aggravated by a culture of silence and a society in psychological glaciation.

 

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