The World We Know
One conversation stayed with me long after the painting was finished.
By Cheerted Keo
Essay · Identity · 5 min read
A few years ago I took part in a project that paired professional artists with children from several NGOs across Cambodia.
Each child created a drawing. The artist would then reinterpret it into a finished artwork, which would later be auctioned to raise funds for the organisation.
The drawing I received was wonderfully simple.
A traditional Khmer wooden house.
Above it, written in a child’s handwriting, were the words Suosdey Chnam Thmey.
Happy New Year.
The moment I saw it, an idea I’d been carrying with me since art school suddenly resurfaced.
For years I’d wanted to create my own interpretation of René Magritte’s famous day-and-night compositions. Not to recreate his paintings, but to explore the same idea through a Cambodian landscape.
This drawing finally gave me the right subject.
The wooden house became a dark silhouette against a bright blue sky. The triangular Khmer New Year decorations still hung outside, quietly reminding us of the celebrations from the night before. One illustration captured two moments at once: the final hours of New Year’s Eve and the first morning of a new year.
Looking back, I don’t think I would have made that illustration without her drawing.
Sometimes another person unknowingly completes an idea you’ve been carrying for years.
"A Teacher"
Later, all of the artists met the children they had been paired with.
The girl I worked with was around six or seven years old.
She was quiet.
The kind of quiet where every answer takes a little time to arrive.
Even while we were drawing together, she seemed more interested in watching than in drawing. It quickly became clear that painting wasn’t really what excited her.
One of the social workers told me a little about her family.
Her parents worked at a scrapyard. Before joining the NGO, they often had no choice but to bring their children with them to work. The yard wasn’t a place for children, but there weren’t many alternatives. The NGO gave them something simple but important: somewhere safe to spend the day while their parents worked.
While we were talking, I asked her what she wanted to become when she grew up.
“A teacher.”
I remember thinking: “A teacher?”
Then we simply continued drawing.
The Same Dream
Some time passed before I thought about that conversation again.
It happened while I was remembering a book I’d once read about two girls growing up in rural Cambodia.
The story followed their everyday lives, the responsibilities they carried from a young age, and the futures they imagined for themselves.
Both dreamed of becoming teachers.
Reading it years earlier, I hadn’t thought much about that detail.
Then I suddenly remembered the little girl.
She had given me exactly the same answer.
The two girls from the book had never met the girl I spent that afternoon with.
Yet somehow they shared the same dream.
That was the moment I began wondering how much of our imagination comes from the world around us.
The Artwork Changed
When I look at that illustration today, I still like it.
It reminds me of an idea I’d wanted to paint for years, and of the little girl who unknowingly gave me the perfect subject.
But the artwork is no longer what I remember most.
I remember a quiet conversation.
A shy girl who wanted to become a teacher.
And a realization that only arrived years later.
You can’t see what you don’t know.
