 Thank you all. I hope that gives you something of an introduction to the team and to the work that they are doing. I'll say a few more words. First of all, welcome to His Excellency, the Ambassador of Cambodia to the 90 Kingdom. We are particularly honored to have you here with us today. Welcome to all of the students who are here. It's really incredible to see to see the interest and the excitement to our colleagues and to our friends. We, I think you have a sense of it from watching the video. We are living a quite extraordinary moment in the history of Cambodia. This is of course the history of its art, but also, and I think inseparably from that, the history of its very identity. The title of today's event, The Soul of the Nation is meant to convey this particular convergence of histories between an art and a collective identity between individual living, breathing, feeling people, as you can see, and those objects in which they establish and sustain collective life. It's a phrase, the soul of our nation. It's a phrase which is itself imbued as much with the history of the modern nation building on and beyond the colonial model as it is with a pre-modern and still very dynamic Cambodian paradigm of personal integrity, consciousness, and good health. The Cambodian Pellung, that's the word for the souls. They keep people going in good times and in bad. When you lose them, the expression in Khmer is Lua Pellung. As they say, for example, when you faint. So when you lose your Pellung, you are weakened, and others come to your aid to call them back into your body. The soul of the nation, the phrase may sound like propaganda, and it certainly is at the heart of Cambodian governmental strategies in securing the return of stolen antiquities. But it draws from deeply ingrained cultural constructs while channeling those constructs to today's experiences and today's needs. It's extraordinary that stones from the crude rock to the worn down fragment of a sculpted bar relief to the full bodied sculpture of Shiva. That is, these stones, just like people can also be experienced as embodying consciousness of an ancestor and of a God but also at the same time of all of those people who interact with them, and all of the collective that they make up. These processes of managing individual and communal well-being and interacting with precious objects. Processes which are always, and I insist on that are always at work with Cambodia's traditional object caretakers I count amongst those people lay people monks ritual efficiency and mediums nuns and museum curators. These processes have burst onto the international stage through the extraordinary work of Cambodian governmental restitution team. First in the lead up to in the long lead up to and then in the wake of the 2019 indictment by US authorities of Douglas Latchford for the trafficking of looted Cambodian antiquities for over four decades. This interdisciplinary team has combed jungles and villages across Cambodia in search of the sites where objects were stolen, in search of the fragments left behind, and the people who ripped the materials from the earth off of the temples or out of the hands of their caretakers, and ultimately or perhaps penultimately as we see the returns now out of Cambodia. The team has combed archival records across Australia, the US, the United Kingdom, Thailand, Singapore and the internet. Family records dealer records museum records divorce court records you name it. They have interviewed dozens of looters and their offspring, they have met with dozens of curators dealers and collectors. They have sought out the people who sold the materials with their bare hands, and oftentimes with lethal weapons. They have sought out the origins of the materials to probe the methods of their locating pillaging and even authenticating themselves to understand the gang organization to understand the trading networks, the shifting historical context, and also the rationale of every link in the Cambodian chain. They've also sought out the international players to the same ends. They have tracked the circuitous pathways that have brought the objects to where they are today. They've tried to understand the methods, the gang organ organization also on the international side, the networks and rationales of those people and institutions, buying and selling Cambodia stolen art. That is those producing the demand leading to the supply, which is to say the pillaging of the country's very soul. The economics of tax systems encouraging trafficking and have picked apart the arguments so often proffered that the international market has effectively saved heritage from what would have been destruction and the chaos of war. This they have proven was destruction, exploiting the chaos of war and perpetuating the harm done in its aftermath. And in the process this interdisciplinary team has developed an extraordinarily rich knowledge of the ancient art and the land and the people of Cambodia. As importantly perhaps they have developed an understanding of the ways in which people have long organized their individual and their communal identities through relations to precious objects. And so doing it strikes me that they have each honed their own identities, personal and collective. It's much more than projecting an identity of oneself or one's country onto a symbolic work of art. That would be the limited nationalistic gesture of claiming antiquities to harbor the soul of a nation. Rather through the process of carrying out this process of carrying out very meticulous research and developing very deep care for the materials and for the people related to the materials that the members of this team have honed their work at the vanguard of object restitution globally, and they have honed their complex identity as the Cambodian restitution team at the heart of their success has been the foraging of a remarkable relationship with one of Cambodia's master looters. Somehow, and I hope to learn more about this today, their work, their care and I insist on that term has cultivated a transformation in this man. Lion, as you heard him refer to was an exceedingly violent man responsible on the ground for so much of the destruction. Under their care. He became deeply repentant. He became a key witness to his own crimes and a unique source of provenancing traffic Cambodian antiquities. That is this team enabled his transformation by working through his deep connections to the land and the objects he wants ripped from it. No one they say knew the lay of the land like lion. No one knew the objects down to the very taste of the stones in his mouth. His identity was inseparable from the objects he stole and the sites he stole them from, but that knowledge, which, at one time, fed and grew on pillaging, they managed to turn back on itself to instead feed restitution. And along the way, the person of lion himself was transformed. The co leaders of the team are his excellency have put Secretary of State in the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, and Bradley Gordon, the lawyer representing the Cambodian ministry in this restitution work. His excellency have put a trained art historian and a previous director of the National Museum of Cambodia has unfortunately had to delay his arrival here in London. So he's unable to join to join us for our conversations today. Bradley Gordon comes to the work with a law degree from Harvard and long experience working in both the humanitarian and the legal fields in Cambodia. John Contia at the end here is a leading wildlife specialist in the Southeast Asian region. Sharing and building on her knowledge of the Cambodian jungle has been instrumental in the restitution work. Contia also holds a BA in English language, and is currently completing a master's in education. Tech so clearly that holds a BA in international relations and is an alumna of the prestigious Harpswell scholar program. Contia and lead out work at Eden Bridge, the Penang Pen legal firm founded by Brad Gordon. The alumni of the SOAS SAP program lead on art historical and archaeological dimensions of this work. Moon Chan, that's a major my right here holds a BA from from pens Royal University of Fine Arts, and an MA from so as and history of art and archeology. He is responsible for international cooperation at the National Museum of Cambodia, including leadership of traveling exhibitions. Contia so Pia also holds a BA from from pens Royal University of Fine Arts, and an MA from so as in history of art and archeology. So Pia is deputy director of the Office of data management at the Department of antiquities of the Cambodian ministry of culture and fine arts. So Pia is currently in the US and has unfortunately been unable to obtain a visa to enter the UK to join the work here in London. She is however online with us and will it be available for Q&A for Q&A period. She appeared frequently in the video which we just saw. But that's me and so Pia, like Lida and Quintia are seconded to the restitution team. I should say that this is the core team only. This is the powerful motor of the team, which generates collaboration with a broad network in and beyond Cambodia. The team supports excavation and statuary restoration teams. The team supports scholars curators politicians, anti trafficking professionals and activists sharing their findings and exploring ways to move forward together. I'm very happy to have in our audience today, two of those also in the network, Simon Warwick, a stone conservator with extensive experience in Cambodia, and saying so Netra, an archaeologist and employee of the Cambodian ministry of culture and fine arts, currently completing her PhD at so as so today the network extends even further into so as with colleagues in the School of Arts co hosting our session. I'm going to introduce myself. I am Ashley Thompson I'm a, I am the chair of Southeast Asian art in the Department of History of art and the School of Arts here at so as my co host for the session today are doctors Heidi Tan, Stephen Murphy and punga audience who will be meeting them shortly. This is a wonderful team of Southeast Asian art archaeology museum and heritage specialists, and they will be running the discussion forum. This will be followed by a short break. Those of us here in person will then reconvene and we warmly welcome you to reconvene after our short break for a screening of winter and tease video essay titled Letters from Pandoranga. This is a film which responds to an early iconic denunciation of how colonial structures of appreciation, in quotes, of non Western art sounded the death knoll of that very art, and which speaks poetically and politically to relations between people stones and natural lands and Cambodians and Cambodia's neighboring chum communities of Vietnam. So let me begin now by asking Brad Gordon to give us a window onto his work. Thank you. It's an honor today for our team to come here to so as we feel very connected to so as because several members of our team are from the schools. And, you know, we, we know about Professor Thompson's work for many years and it's a great honor for us to be here today. We're very much members of a team. No one can stand alone on something like this. This is probably the largest. What are the largest are crimes in history. We're talking multiple crime sites, you know, Cambodia has maybe more than 4000 temples. So we're talking a huge number of temples that were ravaged by moving. And I think you're going to find it incredible today to meet numbers who are here who can tell you about the work on the ground. You know, I, I feel that one of the most important contributions we're making is the relationships we have with the former leaders. And the discoveries we're making in Cambodia that would be history as we look at specific objects and we talk to the leaders. I had an extraordinary experience of going across the country 10 years ago and trying to find members of the team I had a converted woman with me her name is no red. And we went house to house in certain villages trying to find out who was involved. And in the beginning, nobody really wanted to talk to us very much. It took a lot of meeting people, asking them kind of starting to build up the trust following leads. We finally heard we started hearing one name again and again. We went out to one temple during Pajum Ben, which is the ceremony for honoring the ancestors of Cambodia. And we went to the temple we knew we started to learn ways of finding information ways of finding out of people who were in their 60s and 70s and 80s who maybe had memories of what had happened. We knew that we could find them at Pagoda. And we went to one Pagoda during Pajum Ben, and one man turned to me he was about 70 years old and he whispered the name he said you have to look for data. You have to talk to data. He's, he's the one who knows. And I was like where does he live what what you know where can you find him over there somewhere. So we went and we walked down. We actually drive for some distance, when has the house. We went to one house I was with no written and we knocked on the door. And we had stumbled on data cells, and they took was there in the front, the front. And he was in the front room, he was in the front room of the house we walked in we sat on the floor with him. I don't recall any shirts and things we sat on the floor, and Narend said, said to him oh my, my, you know, this guy wants to buy some land. I'm like what. And so he starts talking about land and she says oh he's very interested in antiquities, and we pulled out the Latchford book. He had never seen Latchford's first book adoration glory. We put it on on the on the floor of the room, and he got he just could not let go of it. He started going to it page by page. He kept flipping back to the front cover the front cover is the she done sconda statue that you saw in the video. And he, and he tapped, and he said, he said to his wife, this, this one look at this one. And we had no idea I what the time we're working for the Department of Justice, doing research for the south of these case that was going on. We went back to New York that night was like October 6 2012. You know, it's, it's 10 years ago. And I said, I think we found some of the bills a lot. We didn't know his role we didn't understand until later that he was ahead of a game about 450 people. He, he was talking to us but I could see that he was agitated you know we didn't know who we're dealing with and there were a lot of large pickup trucks outside he had been in the logging business. There were a lot of men walking around it was not a friendly atmosphere. But I kept coming back to him, and I kept going, even when my assignment, my six months with Department of Justice and our team continue talking to him and collecting information. And we became very close friends, very unusual experience for me. But what happened was our team and so, so many members that the Cambodian team get the credit for building that relationship because I speak, I've been in Cambodia for 15 years. I'm not. I cannot do this by myself. I need Cambodians with me. They're the ones who know their language, they know how to talk to someone like this they know how to calm him he was a very aggressive individual. But we became very very close and you know it was heartbreaking that a year ago he died of pancreatic cancer, and he got COVID and he died. He touched us in a way that I just can't explain and and it was something we feel he thanked us for what we're doing. That's all we need. I don't know how to, you know, everything else doesn't really matter other than to bring back this statue. But the fact that he changed his way of thinking, and he was willing to take us to temples he moved it, and we went to many of them. And we started bringing him to meet with archaeologists, and he brought me to one temple in particular you'll hear from Roxman a couple minutes, but he pointed to a place and he said, This is where I do this is where I found it and that was started Shiva. That's where they found the arm in the air when they done. So we know that he wasn't making up. We have heard from many other people about his leadership, violence, and the terrible things. And we, we know that and we see this very much as a path of reduction for what our work is in Cambodia, a path of healing. And we told him again and again, you're not going to go to jail. And he said, You know, I don't care. I just, I did something wrong. I need those sections. So, you know, I think for the group now what, you know, you've heard that we are doing extensive research just 40 people involved. There's, you know, I have to say I could not do this work without the Minister of Culture and Finance Minister has been working with me side by side throughout this and she's courageous she's brave she's articulate and she understands the situation very clearly and she's taught me a lot about diplomacy and about how to work with international institutions and so on. So this, you know, her she she does does a lot of credit how to see how to choose on his way has been remarkable and he had personal relationships with Douglas Latchford with Emma Bunker. He met them. He, he, he was struck by how interested they were in Cambodian history, Cambodian sculpture. I think now that he knows much of the truth because we have a huge amount of records from the Latchford family. I think it's, it's, it's been deeply deeply sad story that these were people that he looked up to that he respected. And now he sees the truth, what was going on. But I think with his quiet console behind the scenes, we've been able to do so much. And the one other person I just want to mention is the son of law, the Prime Minister so pretty what is a very close personal friend and he, he has been amazing, and he has not been in the numbers. He's not you won't see his picture, but behind the scenes he's helping us with funding. He's helping us. He shows up to coffee to the temples. He really, I think personally, I went to him six years ago seven years ago I said there's a dealer out there, a trafficker. He's got a huge collection we should get it back. He said Brad, I trust you, I believe you, you brought me to the minister, I was appointed officially to negotiate for three years. I led the negotiation team to to negotiate with the Latchford. The return of the statute amazing there's a lot more to that. I'm one of many people who are involved, but the fact that these statues are not coming home but the more important thing is the information on top of that. The information we got we got all the records we have invoices we have receipts, we have emails to collectors all over the world. We have an enormous amount of information, and what you're seeing in the United States right now with a lot of the successes. And some of that is definitely tied to that information. So, I think that it's been an extraordinary experience and I really want, you know, the candidates to share with you the importance of why they want these statues back. And to tell you about the methods we've come up with in terms of working with former looters and in the field because we are in an area that this hasn't done before. It's taken, it's taken a lot of people to think about how to deal with this and a lot of trial and error and trying to figure out, how do we deal with these institutions that many of them don't want to discuss this, or they want us to go away. Please stop asking us. But I think you're going to see, you know, we're we're lucky right now to some extent because we're part of the trend. I think that in the next couple of years we're going to see more and more antiquities go home, and it's not just going to be Cambodia it's going to be India it's going to be other countries for sure. I hope that other countries who suffer this fate can learn from what we've done and hopefully get some value out of it. And I think the fact that we were able to work with not just one thing a leader, but we have many informants working with us many, you know, they're more like team members and performance, but I would say that the community work we're doing in Cambodia is incredible. And we have, you know, the prosecutors have said to me so the prosecutors and working with, they say you only have one witness. I'm like we don't have a witness one witness we have a whole country. We have many many people who know about what happened. This, this was not completely done in secret. There's many people who were aware. And once you get out of Cambodia, there's many many people who were complicit in what happened. It was not Douglas slash for the low he was not doing this, just one man, it took people who repaired statues option houses people who did catalogs logistics companies. There's a lot of people aware of the national treasures of Cambodia that move through this country and move through our posts there. And I'll turn. Am I going to. Yeah, I think let's go on to the Q&A. Yeah, to the to your question. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just going to ask some questions to one of the team members here. She's got a very interesting background because she actually is a wildlife specialist so that's why life and conservation. And so I just, maybe you could start by telling us, how did you get involved and how does that skillset of being a wildlife, having a wildlife background. How does that ease you and what you've done so far. I am a wildlife guide. And I also have a guide. Stand up and project. Yeah, again. So, I am a expert by guys in Cambodia. So my word. I have been in a tour of Cambodia. Cambodia Association. So I will be able to be the local NGO that we have to do a conservation project in Cambodia. So, yes, so my, my, my, I have a lot of experience. My experience in the community that protect violence. So it is very important for Cambodia or everywhere for violence. For example, in Cambodia, we have one bird that is symbol of Cambodia. It is very rare for the global population about 300 individuals only. So in one community have these species residence. So, in the community that I will be them, that these communities, the people who live in these communities, they are hunter. So actually, the conservation project happens or we ate after the people living there. So the people are accustomed to eat wilders. So, while I've been there, so my team trained them to stop hunting, we motivate them to understand about how to be to love nature, to love wildlife, to keep wildlife. And they, we try to make the other thing to them. We're watching the tour to be seen in the community. And also my experience, I have done a lot of tour around Cambodia. I learned about the nature environments. So, while I was in the forest, whatever, even plants, insect, mammal, and birds. I learned everything, no step by step. I always have a small camera and take photos and come back and I take pictures of what I have and to be able to do my education. And anyway, in three years ago, I had to join to work with the Ministry of Environment Asia for the restitution for our team to collect the information from former Luta. So, my education, wildlife education is really important that when I met the former Luta, they are, they, most of them, they are hunters. They are, how to say, they hunt the wildlife. So, it is very useful for me to deal with the former Luta for through the community with the former Luta. So, that it is my, it is my, my experience. Yeah, it's really interesting that you have one skill set that can then be applied, you know, quite, quite effectively to this, this new, new form of hunting or hunting that neuters. Yeah, I wonder could you tell us a bit more than about, maybe you could talk a bit more, we got a bit more specific about the lion in general. We've heard a lot about cop care, these are the sculptures. And if you're not familiar, this is one of the major archaeological sites that literally returned from but then maybe you could tell us a bit more about that case and his involvement with cop care and have that played out. Yes, so lion. So, he was clever. He was, he built with the many senior people on many old people. So, he have knowledgeable and he, he is a head of game. So he was across around Cambodia and the people work for him about 400 people to 450 people for men and women. They work as a new team for him. But for his activity, he main activity in copy complete. So he told me or he told our team to, to see everywhere in country, especially he show us about the tempo that he looked at. So, while even there, he also share his experience to me, to the team. He teach about, he share about, oh, here is the tempo, this name. And then this tempo, he have been looked at during this big time. And he also mentioned about this area was visited by tiger also. So during that time, I also have time to learn from him about how to protect myself while I meet the tiger. So he is, he is also he, he was the top one hunter. So he share the experience when, when I see the tiger in front. So need to stay in the stable, how to say standpoints and look at to the tiger, which way the tiger will be go. So, actually the tiger around to, to eat us, to buy us. So we need to stay in the low position and keep still, don't move, keep quiet. So the tiger will run and across, he have experience. And the other one about the wild born. So, actually while I was in the forest, meeting the tool, my client would like to see everything. So sometimes we saw the next of the wild born. And then just around everyone be careful. The wild born also dangerous. If the male one is aggressive. So when you see the wild born, he share, he taught me. If it when I saw the wild born, just keep stand and then prepare my, my legs. If I use her left one, look like stand up like this before let me be prepared to walk to in front. The wild bear, a wild bear will come to, to eat us. So how to, how, how wild bear to make a, protect with the, something like a dangerous with them. They need to run to eat. So we just step ahead like this. But we don't walk, keep walking. We just, we saw the wild keep calm. We just move back. We take our legs, our legs go back. That means we turn a bit over body. So we can protect our body safe from wild keep dangerous. And he also share some more about the wild elephants. So I am a wild guy. So I need to learn everything I can teach to the wild education. So how for he, he said, while he walk in the forest, keep listening to the sound outside. It's like they're how to say the forest sound like, like the tree fall down or what happened with the assume noise, thinking about the elephant. He said, how to connect or what would like to see the elephant. He have also used the horn. But I never seen how, how he use it. He just made like the sample he use the horn like, make a sound. So the elephant thinking about a cat hole, thinking about the family thinking about the partner. So the other one is the technique how he have the, the, the, the virus as a bouncing gala or elephants. So he need to, to see the sky is how about the cloud today is to that or some time. So actually the wind during the afternoon come from Southwest. And he need to thinking about the way of the wind come from Southwest. And he need to focus out about the pond where the pond. So he just keep a bit away from the pond about 400 meters to the, the open area. The wild, the wild some mammal, huge mammal not feeding in very close to the pond and in very deep forest in the, in the forest. He needs a bit away from the forest. So he need to go there for hunt. So I learned a lot from him. It's very useful my, my life education, my, my life knowledge. It is very useful when I met the former. And easy to do the communication with them they well understand and they feel more comfortable to talk with me. Right. Yeah, I think it's really interesting like building that those relationships. And winning over that trust, but also given us, I think a really, you know, quite good indication of the environments you have to work in and actually that the challenges and maybe the dangers as well. So it's really quite, I think it brings a whole other element to, I think when we think of object restitution, people go to museums or maybe archaeological sites but actually a lot of what you're doing is it's right out of these quite a lot areas. I just want to ask you one last question. And we heard from Brad about, you know, lion and how this process has been quite transformative for him, but you at the end of the Bloomberg video. You talked as well about the emotional side of the fact that we see the statue South makes him feel so could you maybe just talk a little bit about what it means to be doing this work. So, how to say what what it means what for my feeling. Yeah, like for my personal. For my personal, I can take a talk about my personal when I need lion before, before I be lying, I know nothing. I, I, I can say no, nothing because of the, I never have time to see many statue, while I also went to visit the temple. So, while I, I step in, I will be him and he shared a lot of experience, a lot of his knowledge, and especially he went while he, he brought us to inside each temple that he had been. So, especially one temple that in nearby Kulei mountains, because he called Congo temple. So it's look like a mountain color, covered by bamboo forest. So, if I, I didn't meet him, I don't know it is how to look like before and what it is inside before. So he told he made a map, like mini timber inside. And then the, the, the, the bamboo was crow on the top. He said, Oh, he is the main timber. I came here and I did. I found the, the, the bucket home. So, very important that when he found something in the temple, he know it is the magic. The bucket, it is the symbol to be for the magic. So, while he got it, he, he divided in small pieces and he shared to his team, everyone to, to hold that one with them everywhere all the time to protect the body. And then he, he, while he, he explained to me as a, Oh, it is very important. The temple has this magic that you decide who will go, he, he, he go, he go, how is it look like a statue for us. I said, Oh, it is very important. And I asked where he gone. He said, Oh, it's all of those he brought to a broker at the border. To Thailand. To Thailand. And then I said, Oh, how many, if you keep asking him how many he's gone, he said he can tell us every, every exactly, but should be thousand, three thousand or four thousand. And I spent, I am glad we will be, we will be him even in the field and in the, in the office. So, when we have time to go in the field, while we make, we discuss with him, he always made a map for us. I went to this temple, this, this location. So some temple, it is seem like nobody know. So we brought, he brought us to there, to visit there, seem like some places, since our apology not yet explored that place. So I think it is how, how I, how, how, how I feeling about it. I can see all the statue is come back. I am so happy. And I think it is very meaningful for my life that I, for my level, my generation is the most of the people, no chance to see the real statue in my country. It is great to see the statue in the pagoda, but some statue in the pagoda is made by Simon, not the original one. But because of the, our culture, we believe in the God, we go to the pagoda and we always bring something, some food or some fruit or some flower to offering our God. We pray what we want, like, even me, I, before I go somewhere, I always said, please, our ancestor bring love to me. He, the way, good way to me, good thinking, good doing, good luck. So, one, I know many statue when I, my feeling really want those statue come back home, because it is good. For my new generation to see, to learn how. Thank you. Thank you. My question will go to leader. Apart from 20, we also heard that you have very interesting background. Far away from our story or technology, they're PA on international relations. So, and then we also heard that you work with your peers, even them to them and take their stories. Firstly, we could tell us more how you get involved in the work with the team, and, and then how maybe you can explain in details what kind of works that you are doing with the villagers. So, first of all, I would like to say thank you and good afternoon, everyone, especially, I respect you. And it's in my great honor to be here as well. So, I was like, I studied international relations. I learned a lot about the policy, implementation, political, economic, cultural, social issues, social development, and so on. So, in, like, in this kind of subjects, I had like different them to solve any issue, like in, like, in, in effective, in effective ways. I, in practice, I work, I've been working on the legal advisory work for even with Asia for the past seven years. And I had a meeting with, like, the government official, and on the directory book. And also, when I visited the United States for last month, we had a meeting with like Homeland Security, the Department of State, you know, through it there was and the records of what you're seeing. So, the subject, I learned international relations, like, helped me a lot to understand about the world complex to find a way to, you know, like, soon to get out, get our sort of antiquities back. So, then I involved in the project of recovery and recovery, like, around for virus, and I met the former leaders and interviewed them, and we got back a team to be the researchers. And for our work, we, like, we divided into two teams, and like, among our 15 members, we have divided into two or three teams, and 16 of them are two or three members, and we have our own though. One is the second one is the interviewer and the other one, we called the interview. Then we also collected the information from virus around the world and put it in the database. And we also have scanned in the Black Lives Matter book and M. M. first book, including other stories, my bronze and my gold. And we put it in a photo of those photographs and showed to the leaders and how many of us used my page and to gather the information. And when we visited the site, we, we always went house to house and to check for leaders around the age of 40 to 50 years old up until 80 years old, like, they can know about the nature of history, or learning activities that have happened between the ages. And actually, before we doing that, we always, like, you could use to those villages and from all of us that we from, we were posted if you see a culture and find out and we trust with them by sharing our mission and telling who we are, and to have this, to have that with our benefit to our nation and this time to share us and bring out to see the area that they. Oh yeah, it's very interesting to hear about the, the grain of the woods, you've done behind the scenes, maybe you could explain more a bit more a deeper understanding for us. How long do you think to introduce yourself to the village that they would open up about their. So, actually, we, we visited the site or we went to see the villages or for many times to check whether they are okay to open with us, and we don't force them to tell us. We want to bet their true feeling, their true love on our history, our status, because it's not only the structure, not in the stone, but their spiritual structure contains of soul, contains of sacred. So that's why they were impressed and started to join us as well. And once you got the testimonies from the stories from how did you move your works to actually prove the origin of statues that they are probably looted or they heard about the looting. Yeah, thank you for being like, really, we got the photo of this culture that we deal up in our database, and we bring it in a very good quality to show them exactly like look clearly whether they recognize that objects that sculpture and we did not leave the question to them, we just show them and they said, oh, this one, I told it, I know about it, so we start telling us more. Yeah, maybe one last question before moving on. Yeah, so maybe you can tell us about your feelings. Now, so I want to know about the feelings of the field as well, whether you ask them their attitude towards this stone sets in whether they want them to come back to Cambodia, and is there any specific reasons for them where this place and it's like one of the former rulers she cried and they asked her about if you want the statue that absolutely I want I want to say to that because she cried, she said that even though the time she moved that the statue contain of the spirit, the sacred, but she still forced herself to looted because of the, like, the silver ball that happened during the country and forced her to do it to get money is a part of her family. So, and now she leave it and she just see that it's kind of catwits of her life to have us, but since that it is what we want to get and now we also want to get the statue back doesn't matter if we keep in the original temple because some of the temple were destroyed and some were not. So, if our temple is here for commission, we prefer to display our return stone and statue to those to their original home. People will pray some prayer and put the jasmine flower on their neck, on their hands and like offer the food, offer like something and we worship and we base whatever we want to get success and also the other like in the south of Rome, they have many empty chambers and now are ready to get out of Scotland and they get it back to install in that chamber and also if any temple were destroyed by the war, we can display the structure into the museum. So, the people of the kind of track tourist boy, you know, or international tourist tourist. Thank you. Okay, and so to round up before we take a break, I'd like to use my colleague. Some of you are familiar with him already. He was a couple of us some years ago now. That's not the first time. History about and about the past four years, I mean, he's been in this very interesting position at the National Museum of being a curator who's involved in putting exhibitions together and long term loans together and traveling exhibitions with the museum's collection. So very interesting position mediated between the ground and one hand and the villagers and the looters and this research is going on very intensive research project and liaising with the outside world and the museums that want to see more of this kind of material traveling. So my question to you I just give you a couple of questions. Can you just share with us a little bit more talking yesterday. Quite specific terms quite interesting that how you went out to the team, meeting the looters talking to me detail about traveling over landscape, looking for evidence and signs of sites potential sites that the looters knowledge of, how did you tap into the looters knowledge. What did they teach you about looking for evidence. Thank you. First of all, my wife is not that high enough and I try my best to deliver my speed to everybody. And I vote confess that I'm a little bit shaking, especially in front of people in particular sitting on the room which is used to be my former class. I'm so excited. And back to the question of it. Thank you very much for the question is how, how I engage with the looters for not confused and to share with the little how we learn from each other. I would begin with a scholar's way. Most have learned from mapping books, reading or any articles and have apparently involved with the practical practices with the looter to see the side from the jungle to the house of the looter to get involved to build trust, be relationship with the looters. And in contrast, the knowledge of the looters is different from me. What I have learned, they never experienced school at all. What I have learned from the experience, the side that they, they, they, they, they used to know from their villagers or from the parent from their friends so forth is different from us. Of course, we do have data from the state of culture. We bring together with the, with the map that all of the, that all has been done, I would say begin first with the map, you need the last long chair from a friend scholar and then met your own, you know, gave it at the Cambodian scholars, and they do have my path to compare with each other sometime on the name example like it really existed in the least, but the local people that they didn't, they didn't call it temple, it was something else. What is that, and they will start to share. And this one is supposed to be this temple, is it right. And so, no, this one, as my team from here has mentioned that he's very different his argument like, no, this temple. Okay. Okay. And then I start to compare to start to bring all the information that he has transferred to our team to compare with the landscape of the temple, if it is accurate or not. For example, like I discovered this, this picture, this picture in this temple and this picture, the style is from this century on what have, what have he learned. This is the style from this century, this century, this century. And I will take this because with the landscape of our project, but this temple is exactly from that period or not, does it fit with what he has done or not. This is my main duty to consider further. I hope this can answer your question. There are many surprising things that they said, which was kind of a surprise to you that they're way of thinking about how to identify the temple. Their local knowledge, their names they gave to the temple, is it surprising to you that it would be quite different from temple they or whatever the French archeologists had identified them as. Yeah. And some places it is surprising and, and they seem like no very well, although he like and although he never experienced school they seem like no very well about it, how to read the same site. You see that mountain. Yeah, you see something on the earth. Yeah. And, and those what I have learned from the surface survey study in my class, as like we tried to get information from him right. So I tried to pretend that you don't know anything and let him explain to me. Oh, do you see that this is a brick structure of the remain architecture remain at the temple on the mound. That what they recognize the modern temple and we would begin our digging around that temple in particular in the top which that he considers as a man chamber of the temple where the status supposed to place it like that. And can you say a bit more about how you're documenting some of this work and how you're integrating this, this kind of data that we collect on the looters into your work of collecting, creating a database in effect for the museum. Okay, sorry. My colleague, he has, she has introduced some about that. And, and I can repeat it again try to repeat again it's like the gathering of document and they have team to work on that gathering of all put it in that database and we currently on the process of doing that, and which we would welcome to especially the officer, Mr. and scholars to get accepted study about those objects. And until now, we do have 105 museum in our database, and we do have information of each object of camera we do have on that. And yeah, there will be, we will think of that, and there will be a process later in the future. Non complicated. And, I mean, there is a song, you know, debate about whether you see how far as museums can extend their reach to be like to incorporate such diverse kinds of work and data on museums in the right place for what we call intangible heritage cultural heritage data. The knowledge of people on the ground. They develop themselves. They have also memorized within all traditions. Because they don't have written documentation, they can draw you make drawings. Yeah, they don't keep written accounts or drawings. We just know it. They remember lying at an incredible memory. He was the living database for the sites. And an understanding of how risky it is to get to those sites as well. The fact that many of these places in the jungle are still mine. Incredibly risky going out there and identifying the sites. I just want to have you going to manage now without lying. You don't have to answer that right now. We can talk about dinner. So, one more. Sure. Yeah, yeah. We've got about 25 minutes for the Q&A. And I'm really happy that the incoming master's cohort for Asia is going to display you're all here today. So it's great that you hopefully experienced firsthand what's happening in the field. So I put a first few questions I want to prioritize our students first. And then we can move on to whether other guests and those people online as well. So this is your chance. You've got one curator here is working in the National Museum and you've got two or three other experts. So this is your chance. I know it's the first seminar. First, literally personally determined. But we've heard a lot of interesting ideas about the importance of these statues. And actually towards the end of the discussion how they should display and where they should display. So many of you got questions that you thought of and you'd like to ask. Yeah, great. Not about the screen but I want to know from you that how long did it take and how did you guys find a way to inspire the government to support this because this is such a large scale exercise. So any insights on that. So, look, this, this process of trying to deal with the epic looting that took place in the in the 80s and 90s started even before I got involved 10 years ago. So there was already a number of people working with the Kimberley government. So it was working with the Kimberley government, the US Attorney's Office in New York. And I think at the very beginning there was a few talk to Cambodia privately, we will hear from every single one of them, how strongly they feel about that. No question, but I think to get Cambodians to stand up and talk in public like this. This is a huge this is a new development of a new page that you can hear clearly the Cambodian force. But I think what has happened. I think because the minister got more and more confidence and talk to that more and more confidence and they saw, we saw statues coming back. I think, and with the support of, you know, we actually have, I would say, but across all political minds. Okay, so we, we have support. This is not something that has been supported just by the Cambodian society. So we have, we have the government supporting us we have the world family supporting us. We have opposition supporting us all across the board, or Cambodians. They are, and we have Khmer Rouge former Khmer Rouge people giving us information. So I think this issue. It hasn't taken some time for the Cambodians to speak loudly and publicly, but privately, these feelings have been there for a long time. And so I don't think I think getting some of those key people across the board, you know, sometimes we have to, you know, I have to call different people to get certain things, certain support. But I, I, you know, I'm not the only one there's a whole group of people working on this. And I think the Cambodian government now sees the successes, and they're, and they're now, you know, across the board very support. I'm talking about successes. I want to know how many artifacts will be turned. That's one, the success rate. Second, I hear that, you know, some of the works are given back and then restored to the original temple. But for those that are not restored to the original temple. How do you intend to display that. Great question. So we haven't. The ministry does have statistics on the exact number that have come back. I would say for our team, we're talking several hundred statues now. And there's a lot more to come that's not been publicly announced. So I think in the next six months, next year, you're going to continue to see headlines about what's coming back. And I, you know, overall, you know, I think it's over a thousand steps. Maybe, you know, if you have the National Museum of Statistics, it's, it's probably over a thousand have been returned in various different ways. But in terms of our work, just gathering this this evidence and testimony and so much has come back in terms of what's going to happen. And the, the initiative that we're working on now so we are thinking a lot about where the statue should come back and where they should be placed when they come back. And, and there's a lot of sentiment among the candidates put them back in the temples. They should be back in the book. Now, as, as we just said, many temples have been destroyed. There's structural issues. There's many, many issues about that. So we're talking about what would new a new museum space looks like. And what should that should be Cambodia, it shouldn't necessarily follow what's here in the UK or what's in the US but what we recognize is that there's a great moment now for collaboration. So we've talked to a number of national museums to come together so museums like the Smithsonian. And a couple other museums were discussions with, we're very happy to work with the Cambodians together and bring their expertise. And let's create something incredible in Cambodia that would honor this honor the statues and at the same time bring this, it's a ripple effect. It can create so many positive things for the country. And then the other thing we're talking a lot about it's an epic, or many epic traveling exhibitions. So that in the future, all the information we're discovering can be shared with the world, and, and the world will have more, more information more understanding about Cambodia system. That's a very exciting phase that we're starting to enter into, and we can't do it alone. We need help. This is going to take a lot of brainstorming, a lot of thinking. And of course, eventually we'll take funds and so on. But I think it's a 10 to 15 year plan. It's not something you do tomorrow. It's something that we have to put. I realized as we were starting to talk a lot about potential litigation, going into negotiations and stuff that we, we can't have everyone as our enemy. That's not going to work. So we need to build a number of friends of Cambodia to work alongside Cambodia to think about, okay, I mean the Cambodians will take care of these subjects. They're going to be taken care of, but in terms of creating facilities with incredibly good conservation techniques and so on Cambodia wants that. How do we do that, how do we get there 10 years from now 15. So, from my idea, Cambodia is a bit of a cultural like we can see on forward. And we have another like the World Heritage Site in 1992, and we have another around 4 or 5,000 temples across the country. So, it's kind of cultural value of Cambodia right now. So, it doesn't matter if, like, the sort of antiquities like become bad. So I like my message to all the museum like Cambodia will take care of all of them. So whenever we have all those out of my statue back, we will plan to display in like a well condition and build up more museums to attract and to see my culture of Cambodia. Yeah, I wish to add. I'm glad I started getting especially your second question. Our strategy has new museum to display that we have resources to take care of our own cultural heritage. We do have policy because I want to withdraw is what I'm doing right now. traveling international traveling exhibition should be a good idea that was that is the good case that we have been talking about from the DNA museum is coming. It's come to my brain is like the, the, the, the, the, the temporary exhibition of the actual beer objects and that is a good case. And I hope that in the future that maybe there will be a possibility of travel exhibition of the return. Yeah, great. Great. Yeah. So it seems like the statues themselves they've had a long history of being constructed. A lot of stakeholders from the luxurious and the organized current works and stuff. When you just playing, or when you are thinking about this being the objects, do you find places or spaces for people like. In those, or like, is there relevance to speak about very many people who are involved, probably by coercion something. So, like, do you find the relevance to that story. Thank you very much for your question. I think it would be good if we are both to that so we can trust where the object has come and with the voice of the people are actually practicable, but in another case we also become certain of securing their security as well. And there will be another cases, and we, we're still working on that and considering that. I would say that have to choose Secretary of State. He gave a talk a couple weeks ago. When I first went to him about lying, he was a bit reluctant. You know, he's a Khmer Rouge victim. And his family were victims of the Khmer Rouge. And I said to him we're working with a Khmer Rouge child soldier. He's gay? Are you okay with that? And he didn't, you know, he was like, if we have to. But he privately supported it and he gave a speech a couple weeks ago and he talked about lying knowledge, he acknowledged publicly that because of lying we knew exactly where the she runs gone to him from. And so I think that there's definitely room in any, any exhibitions we do in the future to tell. And Lyon's only one of many, right, there's many sorts of people here. And I think, but Roxy may touch on a really good important point, which is, this is a live investigation, but we're not, we can't just celebrate and say it's all over. This is ongoing and we are, we use code names. We ask each person, each former leader what if they're comfortable with the name that we're going to use as a code name. You know, if we give other full names, there is some concern that in Cambodia, some of these individuals could face violence, they could face arrest, they could face all kinds of things. So, you know, I personally have done a lot of support from the Minister of Justice of Cambodia, I think is very happy about what we're doing, and the Minister of Culture, and, and many people in the cabinet recognize that there's a lot of good coming out of this information sharing that's going on. So hopefully we can give them, you know, give them some acknowledgement. And I would say there's one woman that the team worked with we call her iron princess. She was so brave, and she said to us, use my name, I don't care. BBC came and they filmed her and they wanted to film her in the dark and all this kind of stuff. Keep right there. She's like, I don't care. Yes, I stole all these statues, I want them back. So, I think in the future, their stories need to be told in exhibitions so that when people visit, they understand the complexity of the history of the object. Yeah, that's a really great question for my class. I would keep that in mind throughout what we do over the next 10 weeks and if we look at because this is where you get into the hardest things. All right, we have one more question, and then we'll go to the one on that. He mentioned in the video that some museums are very open. I'm wondering the ones that aren't. Do they give you a reason to be playing. And they're just so new. What is your kind of action for those or is there any kind of legal consequences for them just so. Sorry. So there's, there's one museum in New York City, very famous. One museum in New York and we keep saying to them, we, you know, I'm a lawyer, but I recognize that in this sort of campaign that we're doing. Maybe the laws that are on the books are not, are not sufficient to really protect a country like this that went through war and genocide and lost so much and I think I'm the Nazi looting Nazi arch there's a lot of thinking about this. I think for Cambodia in the future something similar, because the museums are saying some museums are saying, great, you know, we went to see Victorian Albert, they were, they were phenomenal. They opened up their provenance documents to us. They showed us the whole collection they were extremely welcome. Other museums are saying to us, no, you show us evidence. And that that museum in New York keeps saying to me. You haven't shown us the evidence of each of these statues where they're stolen from. And we keep saying to them. No, you show us your profits. Yes, we know you don't have an export permit for all those statues, show us your export permit. And they're refusing to do that, and we're saying the burdens on you and my lawyer colleagues are saying to me I better go check. So we are making taking the position that from a moral point of view, these museums, or many countries, but especially Cambodia, I don't think about the context in the history. They need to be helping us they need to be sharing the information we can't guess one particular museum here in your country keeps saying to me, Well, what do you want to see. Now I don't know what's in their collection. How do we know what they have. We say anything's Cambodian show it to us. No, you have to identify what you want to see. So this is the kind of thing that we're up against. And how are we dealing with it. Many ways. One John Oliver is another. There's many ways and we need, we need in the future public opinion to switch to shift to the point where public opinion is that shameful. You should not museum, you know I've met many museum professionals we can have very beautiful conversations very constructive very, very positive. And I think many museum professionals don't want to be associated with this sort of. So it's, you know, I think these, you know, the public has to say to these institutions. No, that's not a proper way of acting the Cambodians came all the way to the UK. They came, they came here they want to see their Cambodian collection. You can do whatever you can to help be in a perfect beautiful the way they treated us. You know, so another museum, not so far from here. I'm going to take one or two of the, maybe we'll look at this is an interesting one. So we've been talking about objects looted in this great, you know, post 1970s or, you know, the 1970s up to 1990s but of course, there's large colonial collections, and there's large colonial collections in France for example with the Cambodian material. So, yeah, the question here and I think it is really appropriate one is, are you looking at that material to it's, you know, is there movement in terms of that because, you know, if you look at the Benin bronzes that a lot of them are going back now from Germany and a lot of UK museums and their colonial collections. And so there's movement there but have you started to look at that or is that just a whole other ball game right now. Yeah, so we have, we have had some informal discussions we know that, you know, there are 300 statutes in a museum in Paris, and they were taken out in 1874. And then in 1928 and 1920s and so on. And I went and met the chief curator and had a very, very positive conversation. And, and I think, you know, for the Cambodians. That collection extremely important. It is some of the most significant statues. We are treating that as a separate. I would say we're looking at it at the same time right now, but we're treating it as a separate body of work that we have to do. But I would say, we're not ignoring what's in Paris. And so we've gone and we've had some preliminary discussions. I think that there's a very good relationship between France and Cambodia in many ways on the cultural side. And I think that there's, there's lots of promise for some extraordinary collaborations and, and returns in the future. So, I think it's also, it's, you know, you know, we are watching what's going on with the, with the Netherlands, with Germany, and we're going to see what's going to happen with France. Yeah, because there is the sub-Saharan material. All right, I think we got one last question from the room and we'll wrap it up. So, obviously it's students who are so as we are very interested in a certain part of the world. And I think that there are a lot of museums with a very, with, with exhibitions that really speak to the sort of genuine and like I think authentic cultures that are represented, things like that. So for us, as people going into this, what would we need to sort of prepare for, I guess, like if we wanted to get involved and stuff, like what would you suggest we sort of think about as we, I guess, complete this master's program that also like built into the professional world as well. In terms of repatriation, not just with you guys, just like a number or two. I think it's one who's very curious that they're involved. But I think you're an excellent institution in terms of, you know, the professors I know and the location and the knowledge here is tremendous. I think it's just good to, to be sensitive to, to each society culture around the world, what, what is authentic, what's not, and to really understand how incomplete everything is at the moment. And there's so much work, work that needs to be done. And I think that the community right now is actually pretty small, who is involved. So I would encourage you to reach out to other professionals working in this area. And I wouldn't, it's cost-disciplinar, as you see, we have wildlife experts, we have international relations, we have archaeologists, we are historians. You know, I think what I've learned from this is that we can't do it alone, and we need many different skills. And we need ambassadors, we need ministries, we need government officials, we need private sector. There's a lot of people, but when you look at who's involved right now, the leaders in this field, you know, this is a fairly small group. But I think all of them are very passionate, and they would be willing to give you some advice. And I think it depends what angle you're coming at. But, you know, for us, we go to museums and we have allies. No question. There are many innovators who love what we do. You know, it's going to be, if you're going to a museum department, it's, you know, you're not going to be alone. There's definitely people who are very passionate. Right. We'll draw it to approach you when that's. Yeah, is that a thing of our Q&A? Yeah, it's just the end of the Q&A. And I know for my students it's a two-hour slot, so if you have to leave, that's fine. But there is another part to this. Yeah, that's great. I just wanted to, first of all, to, well, to respond quickly to that question, I was in my MA class, my first MA class this morning. There were a bunch of students from art and archaeology, students from social anthropology, a student, a couple of students from the curating MA. And it seems to me that that kind of interdisciplinary work, really understanding the intersections between the artist, between museum work, the legal profession, right? And putting it the heart of that ethics, right, thinking that you're an artist, you think ethically, you're in museum studies, you think ethically, you're in social anthropology, you think ethically. And that's something that, here at So Ask, we can really, really push and really sort of push ourselves individually, but also as teachers and as a collective. And that seems to me to be what something that I really get out of this team's work, but that's front and center for them. And they're moving with their different disciplines, but all with a kind of shared ethical understanding of where we are in the world today. So I don't know, that seems something that's really wonderful that you all are sort of showing us and really appreciate it. I just wanted to say that, before we thank them, we will be, we have a 15 minute break and we're coming back together to screen a film, and I hope that you all can join us for that. I want to thank our online attendees as well because they won't be able to be a part of that. So, yes, thank you to my colleagues at So Ask for joining in and really working with the team to think about how we might present the materials today. And a deep, deep thank you to all of you for sharing with us and, and his Excellency, the Ambassador would like to have a word of, to close the session as well, thank you. Well, first of all, I would like to thanks as thousands on the speaker here. I'm invited to listen what happened and what being said by him that we like our people to speak. I have one word to say and also like to appeal. And what being said by Prince here, you know, she's crying when we talk about the soul of the year. And I have one word that I have experienced when I was ambassador to Asia, and I usually work to negotiate to bring our side back to Cambodia. It might be much greater. I said, we cure the way you don't have a civil war. So we have a lot with it. So to return to start it back to Cambodia, it's kind of, you know, very amazing. I'm not going to respect a kind of thing that can cure, you know, the people wouldn't get because they lost their, you know, status, lost their spirit. So we would like to spring our very fact to Cambodia. So I think through this forum. Once again, I'd like to express my big thanks to Thompson. I didn't really measure. More, more, more less than what I would like to say and like you have us, you know, it's when government government do our best. But we need support from people. We do not want to touch any illegal thing that more or less like to bring our soul back to Cambodia. It can be cruel to hear not to cry again. Of course. I cannot say. How it leads to that kind of recognition for the country. Like I said, it has no relation to cure like to solve the issue by. So, like we get our stolen. I think this is bad. It's not going to be a question to interview with the former lawyer. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So. So we tried to take out a matter of question, but. Even in the country like before or after the war. any one of the people after your marriage or we ask about their decade, something like that to figure out the year to try to have that, but later he had an amazing memory, so he remember everything about the year, about the location, and decided to be having asked them about the location, it's very important because there were many expenses. So we want to know which time for exactly that they come out, like why aren't they mostly paid on time or for pay, and mostly like the non people and see why I'm standing up from the side to side. And after the location, we ask them about how did you move and how did you transport that, and how method that we do remove or define the statute, like sometimes they do most of the formal legal stages, match all the taxes to find the statute. And then we also ask them like, what the question is about, how did the statute go, who did you sell to, how many people involved. So it is a question that our team came up and to get all the information and like to prepare the report or something to make it, it is an effective question. So, yes, for my topic, my topic is hit my hand, so while I will be lying, I pay my attention to my health too much, because he actually takes my root people, he attends you, so anyway, I try out my best, my attention, because I really, I can say, I can't wait to get all the information from him. And I also want a person that I know he is at the end of his life. So I have to say any minute I say with him, I take his ear, I take everything, ask him what or when is possible, I can get all the information from him. So, while we talk about the statute, talk about lying, make me hit my hands. But anyway, about the, or the statute, what I know information from him, I really want those get back home because of it is no statute, very important for my country, for Cambodian people, and those statute most of them get out during the war. And I know I got information from some library during the war, during my people got killed, very, very bad situation. And the new generation actor, they not being known, the people right now, they don't know how the statute look like, like pick up, pick up and stand up, they don't know. If we don't do this project, Cambodian people no chance to see pick up and stand up. So, it is very important, and it is his Cambodian hands, when you talk about Cambodian statute, because Cambodian statute symbol of our ancestor, we offer as above.