'Pray For Prey' Exhibition Opens to Local Fanfare in Phnom Penh

On January 14th, 2023, the exhibition Pray For Prey opened in F3, Phnom Penh. The exhibition celebrates challenges and achievements in the fight to conserve Cambodian forests. It features more than twenty artists and various NGOs workers, journalists, activists, and students gathering to protect the trees and ensure humanity's survival.

More than 300 people enjoyed a traditional dance performance (Robam Trot, a new take on an old story in which a hunter kills a deer and the community brings it back to life), visited stalls where different conservation NGOs and other youth environmental projects presented their work, tasted Indigenous food and worked traditional tools (by the group Phum Asie from Kampong Thom and the Indigenous Kuy community), and watched live drawing based on Khmer Loeu (the Cambodian term for the 24 different Indigenous ethnic groups).

There was also storytelling under a tree and film screenings in partnership with the Sunflower Film Organization and their project DocuColab—Let's Document Cambodia, which trains Indigenous youth to become filmmakers and record their lives and struggles.

Every day since the exhibition with 100+ artworks and photos opened, it has seen regular visits and school tours. We are excited to help strengthen outreach on some of the most crucial topics for conservation in Cambodia: deforestation and tree loss coverage, illegal poaching and the bushmeat trade, rural migration and the consequences of land grabbing for Indigenous communities, decreased biodiversity, and the efforts to conserve some of the most endangered local species such as the giant ibis, bantengs, pangolins, etc.