Malick, Camille & Jannat (2019) was an invitation from myself to my North-London friends to honor their ancestors. I remixed a Cambodian animist veneration ritual called Bon Pchum Ben and offered food, drinks, candles and incense to our ancestors.

At the time, I had just finished university and found myself without my Cambodian community, who I would usually celebrate this veneration festival with. I also found myself questioning my own position as an art alum in London: I was residing in Tottenham which was showing signs of heavy gentrification. I thought to myself: I identify as a migrant, “allochtoon”, because of my position in society in the Netherlands, but who am I in Tottenham? Whose footsteps am I walking into and whose footsteps are threatening to be erased? Who is the settler in this power dynamic - who deserves to be here?

When a Cambodian moves from one province to another, they dig up a handful of soil from the old place and scatter it at the new place. There they pray to the forest spirit, asking for permission to be there. I think, in my makeshift veneration ritual, I tried to do the same: ask the spirits for their blessings.

Photography by Gianni Antonia.