Samboleap Tol

Samboleap Tol (1990) is a Khmer Dutch artist and researcher based in Rotterdam. Tol is concerned about the wellbeing of diasporic people. Throughout her work, she wonders what has been left behind in ‘the motherland’ and what has been gained in ‘the new world’. She examines holders of knowledge (such as manuscripts & objects), community leaders of the past and present, and their abilities to transfer timeless knowledge to the ones in the future: us, and our children. She questions what it means to ‘stay ourselves’ by asking: what constitutes our origins, our losses and what have we done to reconstruct them ourselves?

Tol is a research associate at The Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN), University of Arts London. She has exhibited across London, including Tate Modern and South London Gallery, and has given artist talks at Camberwell University of the Arts, Framer Framed and more. She studied Fine Arts at Central Saint Martins and Media at Erasmus University & University of Sydney. She recently graduated Summa Cum Laude in Fine Arts (Masters) at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam.