Eleonore – aka Leo – Sok (b. France, 1987) is a journalist, writer, photographer, director, and art lover, based in Cambodia since 2015. She directed the documentary Swinging Phnom Penh in 2013, a series of short films portraits of Cambodian artists. Working as a journalist for ten years, she has been the Southeast Asia correspondent of French media such as Le Monde Magazine, La Croix, Mediapart, and Radio France. In 2019, she published the essay Cambodgiens (Cambodians), a rare testimony of contemporary Cambodian society through a mosaic of portraits.

Her photographic practice took off in 2015 with Studio Image where she joined the residencies of Laure Vasconi and Chantal Stoman, leading to group exhibitions at the French Institute of Cambodia. In 2017, she was part of the Angkor photo festival workshop with tutors Antoine d’Agata, Sohrab Hura, and Tania Bohorquèz, and developed the series Mok Pi Na? (Where I am from?). The following year, Kat Sok! (Cut your hair!) which questions the representation of genres in the Khmer culture was shown at the Angkor Photo Festival. A fruitful collaboration with contemporary dancers New Cambodian Artists (NCA) led to the series Seeds and Sap, which was part of an itinerary exhibition at the triennial Art Nomad “Natte, Nappes” in France (2021), and exhibited at the Indian Photo Festival (2023) and Photo Phnom Penh festival (2023).

Leo’s visual work echoes her intimate quest, exploring the themes of identity, feminity, in-betweenness, memory, and transgenerational heritage. She is now embracing both her place as an observer of the world that surrounds her and an explorer of her inner landscape, still with a lucid and ironic gaze.

She discovered the work of the body with the Dance Theater collective Common Sole, and took part in the stage performances Muze Yourself (2019), The Visit (2020), and Les Corps qui tombent (2023).