Mekong Voices: a mighty yet fragile river and its people expressed through art

Mekong Voices: Transnational River Justice in Mainland Southeast Asia is a collaborative, multi-faceted exhibition opening with a Curator Tour on Sunday 14 September 2025 at the Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, MI, USA.

A transnational initiative, the one-of-a-kind exhibition showcases the work of artists from Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia (up to the Tonle Sap Lake), and Vietnam (down to the Mekong Delta):Ruangsak Anuwatwimon, Baan Had Bai Tai Lue Weavers Group, Pao Houa Her, Wa Lone, Kalyanee Mam, Dylan AT Miner, Vasan Sitthiket, Ubatsat, Kawita Vatanajyankur, and Cambodian contributors Nim Kong, Yim Maline, Lim Sokchanlina, Thang Sothea, and Sao Sreymao.

1) Exhibition poster: Kawita Vatanajyankur, Carrier II, 2017. 2) Olfactory immersion: visitors can experience the smells from the River. 3) Right before the exhibition opening, the start of the Fall Season at Broad Museum. 4)From spring to mouth, the Mekong River names in Tibetan, Mandarin, Burmese, Laotian, Thai, Khmer and Vietnamese (screenhot from a film by Nim Kong/Phare).

These voices from the Mekong express the River's beauty but also the concerns of the riverine communities facing unprecedented challenges. According to Dr.Amanda Flaim, Mekong Culture WELL director, associate professor in MSU’s James Madison College and Department of Sociology, and co-curator of Mekong Voices, “the extraordinary ecological vitality and diversity of the Mekong River has nurtured cultural and ecological diversity across the region for millennia. But this dual abundance is critically imperiled by development agendas across the region. For the past five years, the Mekong Culture WELL’s international teams collaborated in a common effort to understand and map these transformations and their irrevocable impacts on fishes, forests, and communities who have depended on them for generations.”

Adds Dr. Flaim: “No dataset, map, or scientific model produced through our project can compare to the evocative work that Southeast Asian artists are doing to capture and translate the memories, experiences, grief, joy, dreams, and visions held by fishing communities and everyday people across this vital region. Only artists can really capture the many voices of the Mekong.”

For co-curator Marina Pok, the head of Cambodia-based Anicca Foundation, "the public - on site and online through virtual workshops - will discover and interact with human stories from communities depending on sediments, fish, freshwater, and aqua-agriculture provided by the Mekong River. From traditional craft to eco-art, the artworks invite to reflect on environmentalism, identity, community, cultural heritage.

Mekong Flow by Thang Sothea (acquired by Broad Art Museum).

Clockwise, Blue Cloud by Maline Yim and her Clouds series, Old Village by Sao Sreymao and a view of Sreymao's space at the Museum.

With the Cambodian artists, concerns about ecological unbalance, challenged fishing communities and the fading away of traditional village life along the River are expressed with characteristic creativity. Thang Sothea's Mekong Flow runs along a long wall, a powerful reminder of trash contamination with its 103 kilos of up-cycled cans. Yim Maline's series, 4 Clouds - 4 Moods, are potent creations made of recuperated fabric, foam and thread. Sao Sreymao, who's been photographing and documenting Mekong River and Tonle Sap Lake communities for many years, presents a selection of painted photographs, and will hold a virtual workshop on Cultural Mapping (24 January 2026, 9 - 11 AM).

A Bucket of Water, installation by Lim Sokchanlina.

Artist Lim Sokchanlina contributes A bucket of water: Mekong River (2024), a projection-based photographic installation that meditates on ecological loss, displacement, and memory along the Mekong River in Stung Treng Province, Cambodia. By projecting images into metal buckets filled with water from the river, the work transforms a domestic object into a fragile vessel of mourning and reflection. The shimmering surface becomes a living canvas for fragmented scenes: drowned forests, flooded homes, and overcast skies. An invitation to sense and reflect on what is disappearing and what might never return.

“The exhibition reveals the scope of what activism in art ("artivisim") can be, a radical and stimulating form of protest against injustices,” asserts Kelsey Merreck Wagner, artist, anthropologist, and co-curator of Mekong Voices. “Spanning a myriad of mediums, conceptual approaches, and foci from across the Mekong region, these artists highlight the inspiring potential of creative dissent."

The Broad Art Museum

• Mekong Voices: Transnational River Justice in Mainland Southeast Asia is organized by the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University and co-curated by Marina Pok, chairwoman, Anicca Foundation; Kelsey Merreck Wagner, Ph.D. graduate, MSU Department of Anthropology; Dalina A. Perdomo Álvarez, assistant curator; Dr. Amanda Flaim, associate professor, MSU James Madison College and Department of Sociology; and Steven L. Bridges, senior curator and director of curatorial affairs; with support from Mekong Culture WELL Project Postdoctoral Fellows Wisa Wisesjindawat-Fink and Sopheak Chann, and from student research assistants Savitri Ashalata Anantharaman, Leo Baldiga, Katherine Chamberlin, Madison Kennedy-Kequom, Maddie Morrison, Thanh Tran, and Apichaya Thaneerat. Support for this exhibition is provided by the Eli and Edythe Broad Endowed Exhibitions Fund. The Mekong Culture WELL Project (2020–25) is generously funded by a Henry Luce Foundation LuceSEA grant.

• The exhibition will go on until 22 February 2025.

• More information and registration:Broad Art Museum website.

• Read a review by East Lansing Info.