A couple of days to go till Sammaki launches with an all-singing all-dancing street party extravaganza. If you’re in Cambodia on Saturday you should be there as I’m pretty sure it will be the best thing happening in the Mekong region and I’m only slightly exaggerating when I say that. Check this thing out:

Holy crap look at this thing

For those who missed the introduction, Sammaki is a project we’ve been working on for the last 2-3 months to build an arts space for the Battambang community to use for exhibitions, workshops and general arting. It has already attracted a really vibrant community and some great local art so we’re pumped to launch it with a bang.

Got an old digital camera lying around? Participants at an upcoming Open Workshop on Photography are looking for donated cameras to hone their compositional and visual story-telling skills on! Quality of the device doesn’t really matter, so long as it takes what are recognizable as pictures, at least some of the time, we can absolutely use it.

The Open Workshop is designed for Khmer students and NGO teams who want to become better at communicating what’s going on in their projects visually, so your donated device would be furthering the causes of transparency and the open flow of life experience around the world. If you have something you’d like to give, please drop us a line and we’ll figure out how we can collect it!

March has been a busy month for Kinyei’s Open Workshop space. Our most recent workshop was led by Amit Janco, who ran a creative arts class, exploring self-expression through a range of mediums.

The participants, both Khmer and foreign, hailed from a variety of occupations, some NGO workers, some English teachers, others small business owners who worked in pairs to enhance communication methods using paints, and other tools.

Participants had lots to say about the experience. One particpant was “refreshed [about] the meditative aspect of artwork, and enjoyed the people and Amit’s easy charm”.

The participants created artwork collaboratively, working in pairs. They then went on a meditative walk to explore how their heightened sensitivity to their surroundings transformed their creative process. It was great to hear one participant say “ideas come from doing, not thinking though that is needed to carry them out”.

If things have seemed a bit silent over here at the Kinyei site this is because the team has been busy helping organise Cambodia’s first TEDx conference! Over 150 people attended, with many more viewing via a live web feed as some of Cambodia’s most inspiring speakers presented on the theme “building the future.”

A representative team from Kinyei attended including Phalla, Untac, and Alex. Speaking for all the attendees, Phalla felt positively “motivated to make changes in society” after the conference. It’s hard not to agree after watching the talks, which are all available online here.

The team were particularly impressed by ex-ad-man Mike Rios, who urged people to ask not “how to make money,” but “how to make meaning.” Mike’s energetic style raised plenty of laughs from the audience and his theme of changing cultural values was carried further by Kounila Keo, who described how young Cambodians were finding unprecedented freedom of expression and escape from social restrictions through blogging.

Besides a change in values, many speakers suggested changes in Cambodians’ education. Sithen Sum urged people to take their education into their own hands, while Phloeun Prim reflected upon the importance of cultural and artistic education to a rebuilding nation.

In the context of Phloeun’s talk, the music, dance, and live visual art performances throughout the day, including live painting and chapei performance by Keeda Oikawa and Kong Nai, hip hop dancing by Tiny Toones, and traditional smot chanting by master Keot Ran and student Srey Peu showed the way forward for the “transformation of the nation through the arts.”

The event was received very positively, with Tharum Bun claiming that the line-up “collectively represent[ed] some of the brightest observers of modern day Cambodia,” and Thomas Wanhoff praising the day for being not just “rational,” but “emotional.” Blogger and social business entrepeneur Leigh saw the event as “an incredible blend of thoughts and cultures.” Congratulations to all involved!