Art, surveillance and the politics of memory in Southeast Asia

Across Southeast Asia, artists and cultural rights defenders are increasingly being cast as threats — to public morality, political order and dominant narratives about gender, sexuality, identity and belonging. This is especially true for queer and trans artists, whose bodies, stories and performances often challenge the boundaries that states, religious authorities and conservative movements seek to impose. When they are surveilled, attacked or their work is censored, the consequences touch the foundations of civic space: the right to speak, gather, remember, imagine and contest power.

ArtsEquator’s Southeast Asia Artistic Freedom RADAR Database documents this reality across Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. In its 2025 report, RADAR recorded 159 challenges to artistic freedom across the seven countries. The findings closely mirror those of the CIVICUS Monitor, which rated Myanmar and Vietnam as “Closed,” Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines as “Repressed,” and Malaysia and Indonesia as “Obstructed.”