Recorded on November 4, 2023.
This program introduces audiences to the real-world impact and relevance of provenance research by highlighting the current efforts of the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts to identify and reclaim cultural heritage that was wrongfully taken and sold abroad to Western collectors and museums. The program explores how researchers in Cambodia did-and continue to-conduct research, tracking down antiquities that rightfully belong in their nation. Presenters from the Cambodian Restitution Team, including senior researcher Kunthea Chhoun and Bradley Gordon, the head of the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Art’s investigative team and chief legal counsel, will illuminate their process, including its challenges and successes. The National Museum of Asian Art’s director, Chase Robinson, will moderate the conversation, which will explore how we can better protect Cambodian cultural heritage in the future.
This program was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Bios:
Bradley J. Gordon
Founder, Edenbridge Asia; Head of Investigative Team/Chief Legal Counsel on Repatriations, Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts
Bradley J. Gordon is the founder of Edenbridge Asia, a legal advisory firm in Cambodia. His practice includes advising on corporate transactions, conducting due diligence, and advising on criminal cases. Brad has a JD from Harvard Law School and a BA from Brown University. He has been advising clients for over twenty-eight years with more than twenty-three years of experience in Asia. A United States citizen and a member of the Bar of the State of New York, Brad has worked for several international law firms (Linklaters, Freshfields, and Shearman & Sterling) in New York, London, Bangkok, Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong. He worked with Cambodian refugees in Thailand in 1989. He has lived in Cambodia for sixteen years and has had a law practice in Cambodia for the past fourteen years. In 2012, Brad worked as a consultant for the Southern District of New York on an antiquities case relating to a Khmer statue known as the Duryodhana. His assignment was to track the smuggling network in Cambodia. In 2018, he was appointed as legal advisor to the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts of Cambodia on repatriations and continues to act in this role, coordinating the ongoing investigation into the theft of Cambodian antiquities.
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Ms. CHHOUN Kunthea
Senior Researcher, Edenbridge Asia
Kunthea is a senior researcher who for the past three years has worked with the restitution team at Edenbridge Asia to collect information from former looters. In addition to collecting these testimonies, she is also a senior wildlife guide in Cambodia. She has worked with wildlife conservation projects for many years in the country.
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Chase F. Robinson
Dame Jillian Sackler Director of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art
Chase F. Robinson has been the Dame Jillian Sackler Director of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, since December 2018. A highly regarded scholar of Middle Eastern history and culture, he previously held senior leadership roles at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, serving first as provost and then as president from 2008 to 2018. From 1993 to 2008, Robinson taught Islamic history and culture at the University of Oxford, chairing its Faculty Board of Oriental Studies from 2003 to 2005. He has authored or edited nine books and more than forty articles that span the geographical and chronological breadth of the pre- and early modern Islamic Middle East. Robinson earned his bachelor’s degree from Brown University and his doctorate from Harvard University’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. He is the general editor of Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization and a member of the editorial board of Past & Present. His editorials and commentaries have appeared in several magazines and newspapers.