Linda Sok

Linda Sok is a second-generation descendant of survivors of the Khmer Rouge Regime, a genocidal period in Cambodia’s history which forced her family to flee Cambodia. By accessing fragments of Cambodia's traumatic past, Sok attempts to recontextualise lost traditions and culture to allow living descendants to process the history through a decolonialised contemporary lens. She sees her practice as a biomythography, positioning historical events, cultural objects, and personal and familial stories, as archives from which she can begin to build a narrative for Cambodia’s and her own past and future. 

Sok graduated from the University of New South Wales Art & Design in Australia with a degree in Fine Arts and was awarded First Class Honours and the University Medal. Sok has exhibited internationally in institutions such as Center for Craft (North Carolina), Textile Arts Center (New York), Multicultural Arts Center (Massachusetts), Gertrude Contemporary (Melbourne), Artspace (Sydney), Casula Powerhouse Art Center (Sydney), and Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane).

Tell us about your creative process, what drives your practice?

I have a strong investment in materials derived from my culture and have employed materials such as Cambodian silk, salt, gold leaf, joss paper, mosquito nets, gold trinkets, imagery of family, traditional ceremonies, Cambodian myths and oral stories to speak about ideas of resilience and healing in the present day. I am interested in the ways in which these objects are able to provide a way for me and others dealing with intergenerational trauma, access to these post-memory experiences despite not having experienced the trauma firsthand. Most recently I have been looking at Pidan weavings, which are a form of silk weaving that depict pictorial renditions of temples, apsara (dancers), animals such as naga (snakes), elephants, birds, and various plants and other Buddhist scenes. Through research I have found that, materially and conceptually, these objects hold a lot – the importance of Pidans within Cambodian culture, the history of silk, the processes of ikat (which include tying and naturally dyeing threads), the process of weaving, its matrilineal roots, and the trauma of its erasure during the Khmer Rouge. This research alongside considerations regarding the materiality of the object itself informs the ways I move forward with experimentation with finding my own visual language or process that brings the object into the fold of contemporary conversations around diasporic experiences.

What inspired the introduction of screen printing into your textile practice?

I was always interested in screen printing ever since learning about it in class my first year of university, but it never found its way into my practice. I began incorporating it in 2021 after looking at photographs of my family since moving away to live in the US, as a way to cope with the distance from them. In particular, I was looking at a video my dad took of my grandmother with a bird perched on her hand. The bird was raised by my second cousin, who had found it when it was still in its egg after it had fallen out of a tree. I loved the image so much I reproduced it on a silkscreen and used it to print onto the threads of the work called My Grandmother with a bird. 

Family and matriarchal figures are central to your work. What is the significance of printmaking processes in representing these personal and collective histories?

The practice of weaving was targeted and almost erased during the Khmer Rouge, and many Pidans were stolen, destroyed, or lost due to environmental degradation. Cambodian silk weaving was a matrilineally handed down practice, so when delving into those histories, I felt drawn to the female figures who would have passed down the techniques, and in turn, began thinking about the female figures in my own life. I realised that screen printing was a great way for me to approach the ikat process used in Pidan weavings. By utilising screen printing to create the imagery, I was able to produce many iterations and work on a larger scale, without needing to repeat the laborious process involved with the traditional method. It was a way of approaching tradition, acknowledging its presence, but also creating a process that registered with me and more contemporary dialogues around printing and weaving.

What is the role of ritual within your material and conceptual practices?

I think the idea of ritual exists in many different ways in my life – culturally, there are Cambodian rituals that my family practice and that I participate in, within my own daily life there are rituals I create for myself to ensure that I can continue practicing art, and within my art practice through the process of honouring materials, their history and futures. There are cultural practices and rituals that are converted into materials through my practice. I approach these traditions with the perspective of creating my own language for how I relate to the practice. For example, offerings to ancestors are translated into my practice through adding gold trinkets or gold leaf onto objects. The process of adding the gold elements onto objects or fabric becomes the ritualistic act. 

Are there any female printmakers | artists that influence you?

I feel so new to the printmaking scene, I am currently on the lookout for more artists! I am very enamoured by the following artists though: Stephanie Santana and non-binary artist Rowan Renee. Some non-printmakers currently influencing my work include Caroline Caycedo, Gala Porras Kim, Guadalupe Maravilla, Natalia Nakazawa, and Stephanie Syjuco. 

Finally, what exciting projects are you working on at the moment?

I am currently working on a commission which will be exhibited at the Royal University of Copenhagen, Denmark, later this year in an exhibition titled Cambodian Ikat Reinvented: from lost heritage to living practices. The project looks at recreating lost Pidan based on descriptions written on museum registration cards by French colonial archivists. I will be examining these museum registration cards that verify the existence of lost Pidan weavings and endeavour to decolonialize their legacy by offering the cards to family members to interpret by means of drawing, sketching, writing, or oral exchanges. These exchanges will be used to guide the construction of new weavings that are reimagined to recontextualize them within the contemporary sphere.