Essay by LinDa Saphan and Kevin Cabrera

New York City has borne more than its fair share of trauma in the last 20 years. But traumas like the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 have revealed both the city’s toughness and its sociable, almost small-town side—exemplified in the Christmas tree subculture that is as much a part of holidays in New York as adorned shop windows on Fifth Avenue. Like Christmas, the vendors come every year. And in this pandemic year, particularly, they remain essential hubs of safe community contact, counteracting forced isolation. Since the end of the first COVID-19 wave, New York has been reinventing itself in creative ways—for instance, in the way it has created beautiful outdoor dining settings. The annual ritual of welcoming tree vendors, buying a tree, and carting it home in the cold should buck up New Yorkers as they celebrate the symbols—and substance—of their survivorship and goodwill.

To read the full essay

Barcelona Friends, mark your agenda March 4th 2017 you can watch Nate From Lowell, MA directed by LinDa Saphan.

"The festival hopes to be the voice and representation for films with a unique voice and message, regardless of how low the budget might be.

Each month film industry specialists watch and vote for The Best of The Festival in each category. Aiming to inspire, motivate and award new talent."

We have been selected for Best Documentary Short. We are so excited!

Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia Lost Rock and Roll had it world premiere in Phnom Penh in 2014. Since then the film opened in many other countries. The film was screened in many cities with a Cambodian communities from Paris (France), to Long Beach and Lowell in USA and Montreal in Canada among many others.

It is important to bring the film to the Cambodian people in the provinces- in the villages. Bayon Band – Samley Hong – once brought rock and roll on an oxcart in the village back in the 1960s, the film will have the same spirit.

The aim of the project is to bring the film to seven provincial towns for the people to have an opportunity to come together and celebrate its musical history, share their memories of the pre-war era, and commemorate the country talents.

Filmmaker and producer John Pirozzi and the head researcher, sociologist Dr LinDa Saphan will hold a Q&A after each screening, the audience will have first hand experience regarding the motivation, research process and behind the scene stories.

Nate from Lowell, MA. 7:07, Released July 2016. "About the importance of archiving memory through the lens of a record collector who preserved Cambodian popular music history."

INTERLACE: THREE ARTISTS IN THE CAMBODIAN DIASPORA

"Almost 40 years after the Khmer Rouge regime devastated Cambodian cultural production, artists are uncovering their own growth that formed out of the bloodshed. The genocide, which affected how Cambodians articulate their culture, perpetuated a mass exodus of over one million people who scattered across the globe to the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe. Caught between identifying their sense of belonging in two (or more) different countries, Cambodian refugees that fled the genocide have experienced various moments of displacement, abandonment and cultural hybridity. InCube Arts Space’s “INTERLACE,” curated by Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani, features three artists who weave into their work their personal life stories of growing up outside their homeland, as well as the challenges they faced while assimilating within a society that either ignored or misconstrued their native culture. Feeling stateless after fleeing their homeland, these artists have articulated and defined their own space through their artwork. They create their own metaphorical maps, illuminated with new shapes and border demarcations, through mixed media and performance art that reference childhood memories and practices that have remained throughout their upbringing abroad."

June 10 – 30, 2016 Curated by Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani Artists｜Anida Yoeu Ali, Amy Lee Sanford, LinDa Saphan Performance｜Friday, June 10, 6pm, Single Break Pot: West 52nd Street, by Amy Lee Sanford. Opening Reception｜Friday, June 10, 7 – 9 pm InCube Gallery: 314 west 52nd Street, #1, New York, NY 10019, USA

INTERLACE: Three Artists in the Cambodian Diaspora tackles the contemporary relationship with memories and the recollection of small narratives beyond mainstream histories. At the same time, stemming from the artists’ local awareness and global perspectives, the exhibition looks at universal concerns that are able to invest a broader audience with a participatory role in experiencing and responding to the works by ultimately dwelling on their own migratory experience.

http://www.incube-arts.org/upcoming.html

Dr. LinDa Saphan conducted a social science research, in collaboration with Dr. Berger from the Psychology Department to interview older Khmer Rouge survivors living in Lowell, Massachusetts, to document their memories of Cambodian music prior to the Cambodian Civil War (1970–1975) and study how those memories are transmitted and how they cement social bonds through shared cultural identity.

PenhSamnang Kang, our research assistant was key in interviewing the Cambodian elders in Lowell. We conducted a total of 32 interviews in less than a week.

April 28, 2016

Researcher LinDa Saphan and director John Pirozzi just visited the May 4th Center memorial at Kent State.On May 4th,1970 four unarmed students lives were brutally taken from them at an antiwar protest on the Kent State campus by Ohio National guardsmen. The students were protesting Nixon's decision to invade Cambodia thereby spreading America's war with Vietnam deeper into S.E. Asia. On that day Kent State's history became inextricably bound to Cambodia's tragic modern history. It's a very powerful exhibit that details the horrific events that occurred here on that fateful day. Not only were the students within their 1st amendment rights to assembly and free speech but history has proven them right that Nixon's expansion of the war into Cambodia would only end in disaster. Tonight's screening of Don't Think I've Forgotten is a very special one for them. http://www.kent.edu/may4/events