Sa Sa Art Gallery was founded in 2009 by the Cambodian artist group Stiev Selapak, or Art Rebels, who saw the need for an independent commercial gallery that provided opportunities for emerging artists and engaging the Cambodian public. Sa Sa Art Gallery hosted eleven exhibitions by emerging artists and, along the way, developed a loyal audience of art advocates in the local Cambodian and expatriate community. The gallery is listed in The Japan Foundation's Art Guide to Asia (2010). In 2010, after many Cambodian and foreign artists offered their work for an art auction fundraiser, Stiev Selapak was able to create Sa Sa Art Projects to fulfill the need for a non-profit artist-operated projects space that engages emerging artists in experimentation and is also used for residencies in a community-based environment at The White Building on Sothearos Boulevard.

BASSAC Art Projects was founded in 2007 by Erin Gleeson, a curator and scholar of contemporary art from Cambodia, to support curatorial and educational practices in the visual arts by providing studio space, publications, and travel support for emerging Cambodian artists.

Gleeson is the Artistic Director of SA SA BASSAC. She writes and lectures extensively on contemporary art and culture from Cambodia, most recently at the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia; Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong; Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong; The Sotheby’s Institute, Singapore; and the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, USA. She is the Cambodian Desk Editor for Art Asia Pacific magazine and contributes to other publications, most recently, Who Cares: 16 Essays on Curating in Asia (Para/Site, 2010). Gleeson has curated numerous solo and group exhibitions including: Best of Discovery with Sopheap Pich at Shcontemporary Art Fair, Shanghai (2008); Svay Ken: Sharing Knowledge, Bophana, Phnom Penh (2008); Forever Until Now with 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong (2009); The Ho Chi Min Trail Project residency at The Long March Space, Beijing (2009); Accumulations, French Cultural Center, Phnom Penh (2010,); Farmers and Freshies, Sa Sa Art Gallery, Phnom Penh  (with Vuth Lyno, 2010); and a forthcoming exhibition at the Institute for Foreign Relations (IFA), Berlin and Stuttgart (2012). Gleeson initiated the first and only ongoing locally based institutional collection of Cambodian contemporary art at the French Cultural Center, Phnom Penh and she consults for a number of other collections. She has been a nominator for various residencies, prizes and exhibitions including apexart, Tokyo Wondersite, Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial, Asia Pacific Triennial, and Sovereign Asian Art Prize. She is from Minneapolis, where she worked in public programs at the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts before moving to Cambodia in 2002 on a Humphrey- Fulbright Fellowship awarded by the University of Minnesota Law School Human Rights Center. Gleeson is based between Phnom Penh and Berlin.