here i present you another great soul. katharina glynne, this wonderful power women i met in the most beautiful town of cambodia. i was looking for a place to volunteer and accidentally i stepped in a meeting of her organisation MAYIBUYE, she manages, which teaches art and dance to cambodian school kids. and boom we instantly got the idea to work together. everything happens for a reason!
hello katharina, tell me about yourself!
i’m half german and half australian – my father was travelling in germany and my mother happened to be his hairdresser… i guess their eyes met in the mirror and they fell in love. my brother and i grew up in switzerland, and we moved to australia when i was 7.
what is your profession?
i still laugh when someone asks me this. i don’t think i have one! i studied community development and international politics, and my first ‘real job’ was here in cambodia – managing a small ngo, and running an art space. ‘professional’ hardly sums up my working life in cambodia – i’ll keep working towards it, but for now things continue to be spontaneous, unplanned, and very cambodian.
which places did you live in or travel to?
when i was 19 i quit my university degree and started travelling in europe – i learnt spanish in spain, saw eastern europe and lived and worked in london. a year later i went to south east asia and joined the masses backpacking thailand, laos and cambodia, but threw in burma for a little adventure, which at the time was still a very closed and mysterious country. when i was 23 i went to study in mexico, and travelled around the country, down into cuba, and back up into the states for a little while. i’ve been lucky enough to see great chunks of this beautiful world, and i hope i have the opportunity to keep seeking out the rest.
where are you now and what are you doing there?
right now i’m sitting on the porch of a traditional khmer wooden house on stilts, somewhere in the countryside outside of a small riverside town called kampot in cambodia. people always talk about how charming and beautiful kampot is, and they’re right – old french colonial buildings, a wide river, quaint cambodian life playing out on the streets – but there’s also much more to kampot than meets the eye. it’s a strange place where western and cambodian worlds combine, and all manner of interesting people end up – dreamers, wanderers, runaways, outcasts, and addicts.. you can find them all in this ‘beautiful’ place.
i’ve lived in kampot for over a year, managing a small not-for-profit that offers creative arts education opportunities to young cambodians living rurally. the ngo, MAYIBUYE CAMBODIA, works through an existing local public school to offer arts classes in traditional khmer and western dance, singing and art, encouraging a generation of young people to think creatively and freely.
i also run a collaborative art space called LIGHTBOX. it’s a place where we encourage intergenerational and cross-cultural exchange through the arts, foster ethical tourism opportunities and try to grow our creative community in kampot.
wow, sounds like a great work with a mixed bag of tasks you are doing! tell me more about your project LIGHTBOX!
LIGHTBOX is a large, open and inclusive space in the heart of kampot that celebrates creativity in the kingdom of wonder. we encourage people to come together to showcase, grow and learn arts in cambodia, from breakdancing through to traditional apsara dance, and everything in between. LIGHTBOX hosts creative events, exhibitions, film screenings and workshops, and has brought people from right across the world together in celebration of modern, traditional and emerging artists in cambodia. i’m inspired every day by the opportunity to celebrate the emerging and established creativity of cambodia at lightbox.
when did you come up with lightbox?
LIGHTBOX launched in june 2014 with an exhibition and event called ‘move kampuchea’, a collaboration between the lovely ellen meyer, mayibuye cambodia and international street art organization, the inside out project, that aimed to bring messages of personal identity into a public work of art. ellen mentored the students at mayibuye cambodia to understand photography and capture portraits of each other. the inside out project then sponsored and facilitated the printing of the children’s images into large black and white posters, which we pasted onto the walls of LIGHTBOX, way into the highest corners.
this exert from the exhibition program explains the core ideas behind the exhibition:
thirty years ago, the khmer rouge implemented one of the most brutal restructurings of a society ever attempted. when s-21 prison staff fled, thousands of photographic records of victims who fell to the brutality were left. the images of the children’s faces in move kampuchea echo those tragic images, but by providing the chance for the children to creatively express themselves through photography, the project empowers cambodian youth to redefine who they are apart from their history. with energetic, smiling and open faces, these children represent the present- day cambodian people; heads straight, eyes forward, and poised to move their nation into the future.
how or why did you get the idea to start this?
lightbox was the brainchild of myself and zoe condliffe, the founder of MAYIBUYE CAMBODIA. we found the space for rent, and our ideas unfolded in great excitable leaps and bounds as we stood in the middle of the big, empty, dusty room. we believe in the importance of creative arts to help define what it means to be cambodian today, in a society still rebuilding and redefining who they are after decades or trauma and violence, in which the arts were targeted, and so many creative individuals were lost. zoe and i were both very passionate about seeing traditional arts celebrated, and saw providing a platform for emerging artists to share their work with the community as a piece missing from the puzzle in kampot.
what is your vision or mission with it?
i believe that arts are unifying, and LIGHTBOX works towards being a true community initiative, defined by the people who have contributed, exhibited, supported and attended. nothing makes me happier than to take a moment out in amongst the mayhem of an event or exhibition to scan the crowd and realize that there are both khmer and western people in the same room, across all age ranges and income brackets, there to celebrate creativity in the beautiful country that is the kingdom of wonder. i believe arts have the power to transform communities and cultures, and bring together the people who are actively shaping the narrative of this country post-genocide, an incredibly important time at which cambodia teeters on the edge of its history and future.
what are your plans for the future with it?
LIGHTBOX IS still very much growing. it began from a grand idea but very humble beginnings, and every day we push and push to reach our big dreams. everything we do defines who we are, and what we’re trying to achieve.
this point is a crucial growth phase for lightbox in which we’re driving towards becoming financially sustainable as an effective social enterprise: operating to serve a community need while generating funds to support our financial self- sufficiency. in the future, LIGHTBOX opes to expand and financially support mayibuye cambodia, so young people can have access to the arts, to help encourage a generation of creative, free-thinking individuals.
LIGHTBOX would not exist without the input of the people who have created it – artists, supporters, performers, attendees and founders – and every person who becomes involved helps us shape what we are, and are capable of achieving. i can’t wait to see who joins us next, and what we can dream into being together.
thank you so much katharina for your loving words. i wish you all the best for LIGHTBOX. let the beauty of art, the creative heads and loving souls make this place a unique multicultural gallery with great benefits for the people around. i hope i can come back and see one day.
for all of you out there if you got inspired and want to join katharina and volunteer with lightbox look at their page here.