A dedicated community-builder and advocate for the arts, Sophearcheath (Sophea) Heang is a second-generation Cambodian-Canadian spoken word artist, writer and poet. Her experience in child and youth care, special education, as a civil servant in case management and adjudication, and as co-founder of Angkor Harvest, allows her to serve in a holistic capacity.
Sophea has served as Director of Operations with the Richmond Arts Coalition and is a BC Culture Days arts administrator, producing two epic events, (1) Invoking Memory that Never Sheds its Potency, and (2) We Are All Storytellers.
Sophea’ s poem, Walking into Khao Dang was written for the Hearts of Freedom exhibit inauguration. She performed the poem, at SFU Bentall III, in Vancouver in 2023. HOF is a Canadian Southeast Asian Historical Research Project (https://heartsoffreedom.org).
Angkor, is a poem Sophea wrote for and performed at the Royal BC Museum’s inauguration gala for its exhibition, Angkor: The Lost Empire of Cambodia, in June 2023.
Sophea contributed as community engagement consultant for the Arts Club: ធីពិសាអាហារសាមគ្គី PITEE PISA AH HA SAMMAKI: A Solidarity Feast for Cambodian Rock Band", during its Canadian premiere of Cambodian Rock Band. Moreover, Sophea recited, The Sweet Tamarind Tree, an ode to her mother’s resilience. She is also researcher and author of, Remembering Cambodian Rock and Roll, an article commissioned by the Arts Club, for its digital and lobby exhibit.
Inside Heartwood, Sophea’s first bi-lingual poem is published in Canadian Literature, special issue 261, Swirling into a Field of Life: Works in Conversation with Y-Dang Troeung. Also, her poem, A Thousand Letters You Will Never Read, appears in the anthology, Perched (2025), by Polar Express Publishing. My Mother’s Brown Eyes, another poetic ode to her mother was published in Shout magazine (Shadbolt Center for the Arts).
Sophea co-facilitated Pandora’s Collective, Free Verse Program (Sept 2025); a creative writing program that brings the voices of incarcerated writers from Mission Medium (men) and Fraser Valley Institution (women) to the Vancouver community. The experience and the public presentation, at Word Vancouver, of residents’ writings, was life changing for Sophea. She wrote for and recited at Word Vancouver, Brown Dream Catcher, a poem inspired by resident writers' and dedicated to the power of storytelling, empathy and community-building.
Sophea also co-produced, alongside the Cambodian Cultural Centre, its inaugural event: Roots of Compassion, that commemorated the 50th year anniversary of the Cambodian genocide. Her poem, Roots of Compassion, written in 2023, guided the artistic and cultural programming that engaged local poets Rosemary Nowicki, Johnny Trinh and Chris B. Patterson and Chau Sambo Meas, a visual artist survivor (of the Cambodian genocide), based in Montreal, and Roland Neveu, French Photo Journalist, who covered ‘the Cambodian story’, extensively.
Additionally, Sophea wrote and performed, The Mountain that Sees from Inside, for, Roots of Compassion. It’s a poetic tribute for the Children of Kampuchea digital photography exhibit, curated to highlight photographic stories of second-generation Cambodian-Canadians born in Khao-I-Dang, a Thai refugee camp.
Sophea is completing her first book, Remember me in Stillness, -a prose and poetry memoir- ; a creative inquiry into the inter-generational genocide experience of Cambodian-Canadians who arrived in Canada in the 1980’s. Remember me in Stillness is supported by Canada Council for the Arts.