After 90% of Cambodia's artists died between 1975 and 1979, a generation rebuilt from almost nothing. Phnom Penh today runs on that energy: white-cube galleries in colonial villas, Vann Molyvann's concrete modernism, circus schools and shadow-puppet troupes.
Cambodia's longest-running independent art space, founded 2000 by Dana Langlois. The Toul Kork branch pairs a purpose-built white-cube gallery with a café; rotating shows of Cambodian painters, photographers and installation artists. Open 07:00–21:00 daily.
Vann Molyvann's 1961 fan-shaped masterpiece on Sisowath Quay, the founding work of New Khmer Architecture — a splayed concrete shell that opens toward the river like a folded palm leaf. Still an active theatre; the lobby is usually accessible on non-event days.
Vann Molyvann's 1964 hydraulic-engineered stadium, built for Games that never came. Earth-bermed seating, exposed concrete stairs and a moat drainage system. Locals fill the terraces from late afternoon for aerobics classes and football.
Artist-run experimental space founded by the Stiev Selapak collective, focused on installation, video and socially engaged practice rather than gallery-market painting. Residency studios plus a small exhibition room; check the schedule as opening hours follow the programme.
The organisation founded by Arn Chorn-Pond, a Khmer Rouge survivor who tracked down surviving master musicians in the 1990s to teach again. Studio classes in pin peat percussion, chapei dang veng lute and classical dance are open to visitors by arrangement.
Founded by filmmaker Rithy Panh in a restored villa on Street 200, it repatriates Cambodian film, photography and sound archives scattered abroad. Free viewing booths let you pull up footage of 1960s Phnom Penh and rare Khmer Rouge-era reels.
The Battambang art school's touring company performs modern Cambodian circus: acrobatics, live band and theatre built around Khmer folk tales and post-war stories rather than Western clowning. Shows run several nights weekly under a big top.
Weekend performances of sbek thom (large leather shadow puppets, a UNESCO-listed form) and sbek touch, staged behind a lit screen with live pin peat ensemble. The workshop next door lets you watch puppets being cut from cowhide.
Headquarters of Cambodian Buddhism since 1443 and seat of the Sangha patriarch. Of 500 monks here in 1975, most were killed; the library was thrown into the river. Rebuilt stupas, a hair-relic shrine of the Buddha and a working monastic school occupy the compound.
Jean Desbois and Louis Chauchon's 1937 art deco rotunda — an ochre cruciform dome that was among the largest in Asia at completion. Under it, sections for silverwork, Khmer silk krama and antique coins fan out along the four arms.
Street 178 is the city's dealer strip: stone-carving workshops, lacquer studios and the Royal University of Fine Arts sit alongside the Institut Français, which runs film screenings, Khmer-French exhibitions and a media library.
Lou Banhap's 1963 low-cost housing block housed generations of dancers, musicians and painters until demolition in 2017. The Bassac riverfront still holds Molyvann's Preah Suramarit National Theatre ruins and the artist community that scattered nearby.