Travels and Tapestries: Possibilities for creative exchange in Melbourne and Phnom Penh

This chapter centres on an exchange between Melbourne-based artist Clare McCracken and a creative community in Phnom Penh's "White Building" neighbourhood, including artists Khvay Samnang and Sok Chanrado. The chapter presents a critically engaged discussion of a number of recent projects, with a particular focus on work that explores the experiences, needs, desires, and ideas of sectors of less-visible communities. For artists in Cambodia, this has chiefly involved those with lower incomes, and creative communities. For McCracken, this has primarily included women, the elderly and migrants. Through an evaluative discussion of exchanges between McCracken and artists in Phnom Penh, the chapter offers critical insight into the practices of each, while also reflexively arguing for a mode of creative exchange that is based in an equal dialogue and an attentiveness to what the authors term the "locality-specific."