Full STEAM Ahead x Full Circle: 2021 - 2022

Arts & Education

Project 2021 - 2022

Full Circle

Full STEAM Ahead

With a solid, developed-world education program in place we need to ensure a smooth transition into careers that challenge our youth and meet the demands of Cambodia’s fast growing economy.”

Scott Neeson, CCF Founder and Executive Director

The Neeson Cripps Academy engages in a global discussion about the future of education, and how to design spaces now that imagine the future. Combining flexibility for the evolving needs of student based learning, and a focus on STEAM education.”

Pam Campbell. Partner, COOKFOX Architects

CCF was founded on one basic principle: giving access to high-quality education to impoverished children will provide them with pathways out of poverty.

But we didn’t just want to provide an education. We wanted to shape the whole child, not just the academic mind. Our holistic approach encourages individuality, forming well-rounded individuals who are curious about the world and can lead change within it.

After successfully operating in the garbage dump area of Steung Meanchey for ten years, we realised our goal required a STEM-focused curriculum.

STEM learning has provided a fertile environment for young CCF minds to flourish, enriching their lives and providing opportunities for long-term personal and intellectual success.

Our award-winning Education Program and Neeson Cripps Academy (NCA) provide some of the highest

quality education in the country, fostering a new generation of enlightened young Cambodians.

Investing in a child’s education is not a short-term commitment.

CCF, like our students, must be adaptable to a changing world.

Cambodia is rapidly evolving, and we must keep up by preparing our students for a modern country fueled by a digital and technological revolution.

There needs to be more than STEM education to satisfy the demands of the twenty-first-century economy. Students require more to flourish in a quickly changing world.

It was time to make a difference - and put the Arts into learning!

From STEM to a STEAM (Science,

Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics).

When the NCA opened in early 2017, STEM education was a relatively new concept in Cambodia - efforts to modernise the Cambodian education system have seen it more widely introduced as the country seeks to embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the digital economy - and CCF was proud to lead the way in its development.

Now we want to be at the forefront of establishing STEAM education in Cambodia.

From the beginning, it was always the ambition of the designers of the NCA, COOKFOX Architects, that the building would focus on STEAM education - evident from the gallery art space and stage area for music and dance productions incorporated into the design.

STEAM will allow CCF to take STEM to the next level, incorporating the arts - visual, performance, language and physical arts - into our curriculum. We want to

spark the imagination and creativity through arts in ways that align with STEM learning.

Through STEAM, we can introduce our students to new concepts and innovative ways of thinking. We are using the arts as a format of exploration and interrogation of the other disciplines of STEM education.

We knew we needed something spectacular to kick off our STEAM adventure. From this spark of an idea grew a 14-month multicultural and cross-generational series of projects involving local and international artists and an exchange with Canada in an exciting and unique collaboration.

As a result, we created ‘Full STEAM Ahead,’ an ambitious initiative that promotes STEAM through various artistic and educational projects.

About

STEAM education is all about collaboration and joined-up thinking - merging arts with technology and science. We wanted our Full STEAM Ahead project to have the same ethos: bringing together our students with artists and collaborators to merge concepts and ideas.

What transpired was more wide-scale than we could ever have envisaged, melding together countries and cultures in an ambitious and dynamic artistic venture linking worlds and people.

At the heart of the project was the Phnom Penh train station. A building of historical importance with its restored French colonial grandeur, it would be celebrating its 90th anniversary at the end of 2022.

An iconic steam train displayed at the station provided the inspiration. There would be a link from the past to the present, with STEAM leading a new industrial revolution that will transform the world once more. By looking back and understanding the past, our students can understand what is happening to them now and in the future.

We loved the idea of the steam trains and the station and the fun we could have with all the modern metaphors of platforms, networks and hubs. The station would also serve as a physical space for art works and live projects to be exhibited, engaging with the guests and the general public.

Promoting STEAM education was not just about sparking the imagination of our students but bringing other people into the conversation. Realizing how art fits into, and shapes, the world around them.

Our partner on this journey was long-term supporter Tony Francis, founder of The KBach Arts company, Krama.10 and IP Digital in Phnom Penh, who shared our vision of showcasing art and technology as not just coexisting but operating as a combined force.

scan/click to watch our explainer video created for CCF students when they visited the train station.

All CCF’s activities in Full STEAM Ahead were funded by Krama.10 and supporting companies.

Our early plans for one or two projects grew into multiple exhibitions with numerous artists. Eight projects with 11 exhibitions connecting CCF students and local and international artists explored various themes with a STEM or STEAM connection.

Inspired by our project, a collective of artists from Vancouver, Canada where CCF has links, launched their own version of the project to run in tandem with ours, an exchange of culture and ideas.

Having Canadian artists on board was a tremendous opportunity that opened up new lines of cooperation and international connections. The Thought Train Collective followed on parallel track to Phnom Penh, with their own lines of inquiry branching off along the way.

14 months and some unforgettable experiences later, our Closing Exchange brought all the pieces - in Canada and Cambodia - together in a spectacular celebration of the end of the line and the refurbished Phnom Penh railway station in its 90th year.

A noteworthy first was a live webcast performance between Cambodia and Canada. A symbolic hand over from the analogue train station to the virtual hub of new technologies.

Afterwards, the work was available to buy - but not in the traditional way. As we’re talking about digital economies, it was all exhibited in a virtually gallery, viewed online, and available to purchase as NFTs. A perfect example of art and technology working in harmony.

Expressive Computations

The renovation of Phnom Penh train station was based on a preliminary design by Dr Carlo Santoro, an associate professor at the American University of Phnom Penh, so we were keen to get him involved in a Full STEAM Ahead project.

Expressive computations was a new concept to our students, so they really needed to open their minds and let their creativity run free.

In essence, its data visualization, using of graphics such as charts, infographics and even animations to illustrate data.

For our project, we were throwing art into the mix.

Students would explore the creative link between art, mathematics and geometry using computation - and their imagination!

Halfway through the 10-week course, however, we had to halt the project when COVID hit.

Luckily, our students managed to complete some pieces before the disruption.

Using an Excel spreadsheet, they created lines on a graph, which could be altered as different data was inputted. Slides were made with the Excel spreadsheet numbers in the background with the lines superimposed on them.

It might sound a bit high brow - but our students had a lot of fun.

This project really challenged their way of viewing artwork and the traditional ways of creating art.

And it was the perfect introduction to the crossover between arts and technology, looking at how you visualize or see things. In this case, the art is not a drawing or painting, it’s numbers and lines, but they are a picture that becomes artwork. It’s the imagination which creates the art.

Artist | Dr Carlo Santoro

Dr Carlo Santoro is Associate Professor of Art, Architecture and Urban Design at the American University of Phnom Penh and teacher of the STEAM course, Form & Space Exploration, at the AUPP High School-Foxcroft Academy. He is also a fellow researcher of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing (Cultural Heritage), and a member of ‘Jartrakor’, International Association of Psychology of Art in Rome, and the Arts Committee of Italian Cambodian Business Association (ICBA).

As the founder of Metaestetica Lab, a multidisciplinary research laboratory in Phnom Penh, he has conducted a series of digital and participatory art events at the Sarsus Art Center, Beijing 798 Art Zone, and later at the Artspace, Factory Phnom Penh.

Our Expressive Computation Lab at CCF, promoted within the STEAM courses, offers students the opportunity to look at the world through a lens capable of synthesising interdisciplinary knowledge and exploring the reciprocal relationships between art, graphics, mathematics, geometry and psychology, focusing on computation, visualisation and perception.

This is an experience that has allowed them not only to familiarise themselves with computer software, but also to develop their cognitive skills through those processes of abstraction necessary for the conceptualisation of complex shapes that animate the virtual space of a screen.”

Student | Malita

This was all new to me. I didn’t know that you could make something beautiful in Excel like this. The view of the picture changes based on our imagination. I really enjoyed this part. Using Math like this is so different and I learned so much. I like trying new things and this was a good experience for me.”

This project also had elements of math, visualization, art and geometry - along with bees!

The bees provided inspiration for the initial designs, hence the hives in the title.

When this project began, some of the students were simultaneously working on the student magazine and an article about the roof garden at the Neeson Cripps Academy and the bees who drop by for a visit.

There seemed an interesting idea there - to fuse together the 2 projects and show how art can be a link between bees, math and art.

What followed was an intense series of workshops, nine hours in total, with the 4 students - all girls - exploring different techniques from printmaking to paint splashing.

By the third session, a final design had yet to be decided. Time was ticking with the exhibition at the train station the following weekend.

Spotted among the discarded visual experiments was a hexagon frame, splattered in spilt paint. It was random and kind of cool!

Recreating this was the next mission. How do you recreate a mistake but control it? Black and white, bold, geometric and big hexagon shapes - the honeycomb link to the bees - were brought to life.

Visually, we think it looks great. The main hexagon has paint splatters with the smaller shapes stenciled through netting.

The students finished the second picture on the day with live painting at the train station. Passers-by stopped and joined in, picking up paintbrushes and adding their own touches, thinking it was a public project.

We loved this interactive element and it was an interesting experience for our students!

Hives & Hexagons

Artist | Future Headspace

Future Headspace is an experiment into the cultural commercialization of identity. The artwork evolves around perceptions of reality in regards to how they are portrayed and controlled within cultural traditions.

The UK artist has worked in arts education and higher education institutions in the UK, Canada and Cambodia in schools and colleges such as Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, University College London, Emily Carr University of Arts & Design and Arts Umbrella. Future Headspace is a collaborative studio practice within the visual arts with a current focus on digital arts.

It’s an exciting process to start a project and not know what the outcome is going to be, but it can also be quite challenging for students when they are not used to it.

I was quietly panicking in the first few hours as none of the visual research and material explorations were producing the results I was hoping for and I was losing the attention of the students. But once we found our vision among the ideas we had thrown away the paintings quickly progressed.”

Student | Sreyroth

Art is inspiring because it can give imaginative links to parts of yourself that might otherwise be inaccessible. Art is also important to help reduce stress. We can share our thoughts and [talk] about what we want in the picture and how to make it better. And [with art] our alone time can be happier.”

The Wolf & Raven

There were a couple of the projects where the content wasn’t obviously STEM based but the process of making the artwork was. The Wolf & The Raven was one of these. It was also another one of the projects disrupted by COVID, necessitating a switch online to try and continue as best we could, which had its difficulties.

The Wolf & The Raven is a poem by the talented Khmer American spoken word artist, Kosal Khiev.

Now based in Cambodia, his work describes moments, impressions and feelings.

Getting a chance to work with Kosal and animator SreyNeang introduced our students to creative exploration with poetry, animation and technology, and how these can connect together to create art.

Their original aim was to animate The Wolf & The Raven with an eight-minute piece.

Kosal taught our Grade 11 students how to recite the poem and understand nuance, before the practical part learning Adobe software Animate and Illustrator.

This became harder when everything moved onlinelearning art and technology virtually just didn’t work for this project.

With determination and hard work, our students managed to produce a one-minute trailer, which was exhibited as part of the Full STEAM Ahead event. We’re proud of their can-do attitude to make it work!

Despite the challenges, our students learned valuable skills in storytelling, translating stories into animation, and how technology can be used to bring those words to life, bridging the gap between two worlds.

Kosal was born in Khao I-Dang, a refugee camp on the border of Cambodia and Thailand, and left as a one-year-old when his family fled to the U.S, where he grew up in California.

He returned to Cambodia in 2011. His work focuses on the transformative power of art and the US justice system among other themes. Kosal represented Cambodia in the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, performing at a week-long festival in the lead-up to the Olympic Games opening ceremony.

Art seems to be a place where we can express all forms of emotions without limits,”

SreyNeang, Animation Teacher

This was my first time learning animation and it was a good opportunity for me. When I was in animation class, I felt happy because I learned what I loved. I want this class to run again and I hope that lots of CCF students can learn animation and experience the same as me.”

Kunthea, CCF student

Wonderful Women Wall

Perhaps one of our most ambitious projects - and certainly the largest - was the amazing Wonderful Women Wall Cambodia

A celebration of female intergenerational empowerment featuring CCF’s three eldest grandmothers, three mothers and three daughters, it was inspired by an original project in Germany.

This first Wonderful Women Wall was a huge mural of 48 portraits of notable women - from musicians to politicians - on the side of a building in Halle (Saale), a city in east-central Germany.

It was always envisaged that the Wonderful Women Wall could be replicated in another country, as the universal themes of women and empowerment resonate in any language or culture.

We were excited to be the first location outside Germany to attempt this in some form. Mentored by Danilo Halle, a German artist on the original concept, CCF students began working on the Wonderful Women Wall Cambodia.

We had hoped to have Danilo in person at the NCA but due to COVID travel restrictions, he recorded a series of lessons for online viewing, which worked well for our students.

The students worked with different media and gained an understanding of artistic methods - from digital photography to editing and painting - and the use of technology (Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and motion graphics software, After Effects) to manipulate images.

Nine canvases, each measuring 1m x 1m, were created, representing the three generations of CCF women. This included the three oldest elders in our existing Granny project who have a combined age of 297!

These individual portraits were displayed as one large piece of artwork to form a large square, the ‘wall’, at the train station in Phnom Penh.

Capturing these remarkable women and girls in paint will stand as a powerful testament to the female spirit for generations to come.

Artist | Danilo Halle

The grandson of an art historian and son of a photographer, Danilo has an eye for imagery and compositions developed through a focus on photography and film in his cultural and media education studies. Following his passion, Halle cofounded the artist collective Freiraumgalerie – Kollektiv für Raumentwicklung in 2012.

I am very pleased with the process and the outcome of the project. It was also an experiment for me to do a full online based workshop. The collaboration shows that no matter the odds, even with hundreds of miles in between, international exchange in art and education can still happen. I really hope to continue the cooperation that we have started.”

Student | Sithon

I’ve loved art and painting since I was young. So when I first heard about this project, I had a feeling that I needed to do it because it was a big opportunity. The hardest part was Photoshop because it’s complicated and I needed to concentrate on each step to get it done, and the best part was being involved in all the activities, painting, drawing and exhibitions. I learned a lot about patience, communication and improving my painting, about technique and how to include the meaning in a drawing.”

Pendulum Art

The invention of the very first mechanical apparatus using pendulums to create artistic patterns is widely attributed to Scottish mathematician Hugh Blackburn back in the 1840s!

Fast forward to 2022 and our students began doing their own experiments with pendulums and paint to investigate how art and science can combine to make something beautiful.

They would be learning all about the scientific principles of inertia and motion - shout out here to Issac Newton for his 1st Law of Motion! - and the forces of gravity - with paint.

The principle of pendulum art is simple.

You put paint or another substance in a container and let it swing on the end of a piece of string or cord. As the pendulum swings, it follows an elliptical path. This path can be altered, changing the look of the painting - which is where math comes in.

For their project, our students created a large structure with a long piece of bamboo to hang the swinging cup of paint from.

They had a lot of messy fun testing how variables could change the outcome and spirals. Factors such as the thickness of the paint, size of the hole in the cup, length of the string, and angle and speed of release, all got the students thinking about the forces and science at work.

Teacher | Andrew Roberts

Pendulums were first used in science by Galileo over 400 years ago. Students with a cup of paint can still use the pendulum to look at potential and kinetic forces, and ellipses and explore the viscosity of liquids by seeing the different thicknesses of lines on their pendulum art.

Students can explore this interrelationship improving their creative and critical thinking skills while making great art. I wish I had learned science like this when I was at school.”

Student | Theary

The project is new for us and I learnt a lot from it, such as applying my knowledge of physics that I used to study in school so I can create many shapes, different from a circle or oval. And the draw-bot (drawing robot) is very unique. I used to see it in movies and now I can see it in real life. That feeling is so amazing.”

scan/click to watch the video of Theary and Sokchea reflect on the differences and similarities between the Pendulum Art and Drawing Robot projects

Drawing Robot

Our students always get excited about the thought of robots - so we knew this project was going to be a winner!

Our drawbot - as the students named it - was developed in tandem with the Pendulum Art project, using our existing LEGO Mindstorm kits, which teach kids how to build and program robots.

We set up these projects in the same room, allowing students in each group to interact and consider parallels between the two and the differences.

This project was also very student-led. Rather than an artist or CCF teacher setting out the format, we presented the students with a challenge: to create a drawing robot. They had to use their own set of skills to figure out a solution, discovering along the way how art and technology can be a formidable alliance.

Step forward Grade 11 student Sokchea, who took on the mantle of chief drawing robot designer!

Sockchea says it took her four attempts to make a robot that worked. Over three days, there was numerous tinkering with the design, a lot of LEGO used, a bit of frustration and plenty of ingenuity.

The result was worth all the effort.

Sokchea and the other students saw how the drawbot mimicked the movement of the pendulum but in a precise and controlled way, producing spiral patterns which can be replicated perfectly with coding, in contrast to the more random and abstract patterns the pendulum created.

This sparked a whole new discussion about mass production by machine, its benefits and limitations.

Both the projects gave our students an insight into the importance of math in their lives, how art and technology can co-exist, and opened their minds to creative and critical thinking.

| Sokchea

This project made me realize that technology can do everything. But if I transform the word STEM to STEAM, we also see that our daily life is surrounded by art. My project focuses on STEM but the result becomes artwork.

I will continue this draw-bot project because I think if we practice more, we might be able to draw human or animal shapes.”

Student

3 Generations Transport

It was great to reconnect with old friends for this project, linking up with New Zealand-based artist Sean Duffell.

A graphic artist, we already know how talented Sean is having worked with him originally in 2016 and now again in 2022 where one of his murals adorns an outer wall of our Phum Russei Edible community garden, a jungle-leaf scene bringing the greenery inside to the outside.

As a skater, we knew we wanted Sean to work with students on painting skateboards.

After a brainstorm, eight CCF students and Sean came up with the idea of three generations of Cambodian transport: the old pedal cyclo, to the romork, a big cart hitched to the back of a motorcycle, to the modern motorized tuk tuk of today.

This tied in with the central project hub of the train station and revolutions of Cambodia from industrial to digital, reflected in the evolution of transport, from pedal power to engine and now electric.

To make it fun, the students were challenged to depict each driver as a local fruit with Cambodian animals as the passenger. One letter was added to each board, spelling out CCF, circled by a hexagon, linking back to the Hives & Hexagons projects.

For the final touch, the boards were signed by Sean Duffell and Pro Legend skateboarders Christian Hosoi and Tony Alva, and CCF supporter Steve Van Doren.

We think the finished article looks really cool.

It doesn’t end there - we hope the skateboards can be used for fundraising pieces for CCF creating a legacy from the work.

Student | Mei Neang

I wanted to improve my drawing skill and learn how to sketch. The hardest part was brainstorming ideas about what we were going to draw. I have learnt so many things from this project.

For hard skills, I learned how to draw and sketch and for soft skills, I learned to think fast, creative thinking and working as a team with the teacher and my friends.

I also noticed that drawing makes your brain chill and be at peace.”

Sean Duffell has been a full-time artist for eight years, predominantly painting large-scale walls commissioned for private and public spaces, as well as an exhibiting artist in galleries across New Zealand.

Sean’s distinctive style of abstract shapes and intricately detailed patterns are his renditions of macro worlds derived from insects, birds and plants. Sean attends many art festivals and travels extensively across New Zealand and abroad for client-based commission work. Sean has painted murals in Brazil, Cambodia, Thailand, Australia, Nepal and Europe.

This was a super fun lighthearted project that we all enjoyed on different levels. I had a tremendous time with the students and we had loads of fun coming up with ideas and painting them. The group gelled well socially and I learnt several elements of Cambodia, as well as teaching the process of creating fun but solid imagery that depicts a story.”

Artist | Sean Duffell

‘Before The Rain’

While we’d been working with different techniques and artistic forms, all so far had been visual arts.

We were interested in a project with dance, which could engage our students and local dancers, bringing in cultural and STEM elements.

It was a perfect opportunity to reconnect with the New Cambodian Artists - the country’s first allwomen contemporary dance company - who had performed at CCF previously.

We were really excited to work with Kay Barnes, a dance artist and teacher from Canada, who would be joining us in Cambodia as a representative of the Thought Train Collective in Vancouver, a group of artists running a project in tandem with our Full STEAM Ahead initiative.

Over one week in Cambodia, Kay did workshops with the New Cambodian Artists and CCF students, creating a piece of dance under the theme of water: playing on the word STEAM and the phases of water.

Rain’ Dance

The result was ‘Before the Rain’, a visually abstract piece depicting the phases of a gas becoming liquid, the fluidity of water and movement.

It was an incredible experience for the seven CCF students chosen to work on the dance, who had never received contemporary dance training before, and a true international exchange with the New Cambodian Artists and Kay’s Canadian background.

On return to Vancouver, Kay continued to work with the ideas developed in Cambodia, joined by her dance

partner, Brynne Harper. These developments became the format for the finale - a duet in Cambodia with Ny&Khun from New Cambodian Artists, and duet in Canada with Kay and Brynee. Their performances linked by the CCF students’ dance piece ‘Before The Rain’.

Both dances were then performed live at the Closing Exchange event, live streamed one after the after so the watching audience online saw one continuous performance.

Artists | New Cambodian Artists- Cambodia

New Cambodian Artists consists of two young artists, Ny Lai and Khun Sreynuch, creating contemporary art, predominantly through dance and photography. Since 2012, they have been developing a culture of contemporary dance throughout Cambodia, basing their work on the belief in female empowerment through artistic expression.

Ny and Khun’s award-winning performances are developed in their own studio/ performance space, which recently moved from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. The artists have represented Cambodia in performances and cultural arts festivals in South Korea, Laos, Singapore, Italy, and Switzerland, and are scheduled for workshops and performances in Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Malaysia and Singapore in 2023.”

I enjoyed working with the CCF students. It was a fun and inspiring experience. It was the first for me to work with youth in this way, and it was their first time too, so I am happy with what we were able to achieve.

Artist | Ny Lai

Artist | Kay Barnes - Canada

Kay Barnes choreographer, educator, and dance artist living in the traditional unceded territory of the Salish, Musqueam and TsleilWaututh Nations known as Vancouver. She danced professionally with Karen Jamieson from 1987-1996.

Her own choreography has been featured in Vancouver, San Jose, California, and Barcelona, Spain. She has been a faculty member at Arts Umbrella, a non-profit running art, dance, theater, music and film for youth in the Vancouver area. She founded Crossmaneuver in 2011 for young artists to be trained, to create, and to perform in original interdisciplinary works of art.

The students are intelligent, enthusiastic, and deeply curious. Truly one of the best experiences.”

Student | Sokleap

When I learned with Kay, I was happy. I love to dance. I didn’t know about ‘Sahasamay’ dance (contemporary dance) and I was interested to find out about it. I started the class with Kay and discovered it through a lot of activities, playing games, and freestyle dancing with music.

It was difficult for me to listen to Kay because I am not good at English. I had the Grade 9 exam during the classes but I passed and with a good result. Thank you Kay for your time to share your experience with me and everyone. I really enjoyed the class so much.”

STEM In My Life Photography Competition

One of our staff photographers - a former CCF student - had been running photography workshops with students in the photo and media club, teaching technical skills and practical hands-on guidance.

This gave us the idea for a competition tied into our STEAM narrative with photography adding the A for art.

The title, STEM In My Life, gave students a broad base to get their creative juices flowing - open to interpretation to allow individuality to shine.

We opened up the competition to any student who had been a member of the Media Club in the past from Grades 7-12.

Two Phnom Penh-based photographers - Shunsuke Miyatake and Sokvisal Kim - came to the NCA to give a workshop about using photographs to tell a story, paint a narrative or set a theme.

We wanted our students to be inspired to seek out a moment or feeling and capture it with their camera.

There were 60 entries for four categories: Junior, Senior, Popular Vote and Overall Winner.

Four judges - CCF founder Scott Neeson, photographers Miyatake and Sokvisal, and a CCF STEM teacher - selected the winners rating the

photographs submitted on aesthetic, technical and thematic skills showcased in the images.

The Popular Vote winner was decided by students, teachers and guests at the NCA 5th Anniversary event, who cast their vote blind after viewing all the images.

It was impressive to see the quality of photographs and the thought that had gone into each one.

Congratulations to Cheat Lika who was chosen as the Overall Winner for her beautiful photo entitled ‘Water’.

A Japanese photographer based in Phnom Penh. He started iPhone photography as a hobby in 2010 and became passionate about photography after receiving a positive response from showing his work on Instagram. After moving to Cambodia in 2016, he has focused on documenting people’s everyday life. He is co-founder of ART4FOOD—an initiative of artists and photographers to collect and distribute food to cyclo drivers and families living on the streets of Phnom Penh. He was a 2021 winner of the Single Images category in the 7th Annual Feature shoot Emerging Photography Awards.

It was fun to collaborate with CCF students. They are very pure, so they were asking a lot of questions without hesitation. They were like sponges, listening in very carefully. The results were amazing. I loved all their efforts and creativity, and the way they tried to think of their own concept. In fact, they motivated me to take my own photos as well. I hope we can collaborate again.”

Photography is a hobby. Sokvisal studied several short photography and photo editing courses before bringing his passion for photography to life. His photos have been shown in a few exhibitions in Phnom Penh and once by the Ministry of Environment. He has won some photography competitions and was most recently awarded recognition in a Sony photography competition in Cambodia.

The students were all willing to learn and absorbed what we were trying to say. This made me really happy. I explained how important photos are and what photography can do to society and the benefit one can get as an individual. I was surprised to see the good quality of photos they submitted for the competition. Collaborating with CCF students was a pleasure for me.”

Artist | Shunsuke Miyatake Artist | Sokvisal Kim

| Cheat Lika

I learned a lot from the project, how to use the camera and functions of the camera, Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, and how to write captions.

I also got to know more about communication skills, working as a team, and finding creative ways to capture the moment and a photo related to the theme. I enjoyed it very much and was excited about the competition and ideas I had. I hope I can join more competitions.”

Student

CCF has a history with Canada and Vancouver stretching back almost a decade.

Since 2014, we have been working with Vancouver-based World Housing as its local partner to build safe and clean villages for families to raise their children.

Our links to Canada would provide the inspiration for a cross-cultural and country exchange for the Full STEAM Ahead project, using the steam train and stations as a starting point for a narrative.

This took us on a journey melding different art forms, cultures and countries.

The Thought Train Collective

The Thought Train Collective was formed in Vancouver in 2022 in response to CCF’s Full STEAM Ahead project, under the direction of Mira Malatestinic, an art collector and curator, who brought together a group of interested artists to produce work over a six month period.

Canadian Connections Canadian Connections

The artists:

Connie Sabo 3-D and multimedia installation

Zoran Dragelj Filmmaker

Charlene Vickers

Visual artist, mixed media painter/installation

The Collective’s artistic work aligns itself with CCF’s Full STEAM Ahead project in a way that allows exploration of their own cultural emphasis and points of reference.

Their hub was the Engine 374 Pavilion at Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre located in Vancouver, British Coloumbia. As the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, it was the beginning and the end of the line, connecting the country’s westcoast to its eastcoast. The original Roundhouse housed and serviced the grand steam locomotives of the day, employing a great numbers of workers. Its history is of major significance not only to the completion of the Canadian Railway but is also deeply rooted in the development of the city of Vancouver.

There are parallels here to Cambodia and its own development with the advent of the railway. However, while the two projects used the train station as inspiration for community art projects, the ideas and themes were different, reflecting significant current conversations in each country.

Changó Cummings Architecture and three-dimensional art With Kay Barnes

Dance choreographer and artist

Canada’s creative explorations looked at the impact of the train station and train line, exploring the past and connections to current dialogues around Truth and Reconciliation with First Nations Peoples and recognition of the Chinese immigrants that suffered as the laborers in the building of the railway.

For Cambodia, the storytelling focus was on the importance of STEM development in the rise of the country’s digital revolution.

Both shared a common goal to ignite debate, provoke thought, and connect and engage youth in art. Here were two different cultures, on opposite sides of the world, with the same centralized hub (train station or former train station) where people connect and share stories going on parallel journeys like train tracks.

Mira, the project lead for The Train Collective, had visited CCF in the past and was able to draw on her own experiences and understanding of the unique challenges the children and families face.

Engine 374

One of the original black steam trains - Engine 374 - is kept at the Pavilion 374, next to the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre in Vancouver.

On May 23, 1887, CPR Engine 374 pulled the first transcontinental passenger train into the city. It was a great day not only for Vancouver, but for the whole nation. The event heralded the completion of one of the greatest engineering feats of the century, a twin line of steel linking the new nation of Canada from coast to coast, ten years in construction.

Engine 374 is very similar to an original steam train kept at Phnom Penh train station, another link on our metaphorical railway line.

Every year, on May 21, Victoria Day in Canada (a public holiday in honor Queen Victoria’s birthday], the engine is brought out and fired up in celebration. This was the starting point - the departure station - for The Thought Train Collective.

Rolling Stock (2022)

Filming on Victoria Day, of Engine 374 and the surroundings, was the start of the creative journey.

Inspired by these visuals, filmmaker Zoran Dragelj produced a short experimental digital video capturing the sounds of the train, the bell and steam horn, with imaginative and dreamy panoramas of roaming bison.

Vibrant images invoke speed, motion and distance, with the environment moving in and out of abstraction.

says Zoran.

“With an amalgamation of cinematic and video techniques and unique sound treatments and approaches to subject matter, I invite the viewer into an absorbing world that is both intimate and delirious,”

scan/click to watch Zoran’s Rolling Stock video.

FULL CIRCLE

Artists Connie Sabo and Charlene Vickers’ installation collaboration, reflects on the steam train as the “revolutionary technological vehicle that enabled Vancouver to become the city we know and enjoy today”. Their work probes the history of the Industrial Revolution, referencing their historical connections, and honours the contributions and tribulations of Indigenous and Chinese ancestors in the development of Western Canada.

Over 15,000 Chinese laborers worked on the railway construction, while the railways and the “Iron Horse” cut through Indigenous Peoples’ lands, bringing devastation to their way of life. Connie created a series of bold brush ink drawings in circles that address time, direction, and human presence, while Charlene constructed a series of colorful, sewn, beaded, and button “spirit circles’ with a double-sided Thunderbird Woman in working regalia representing healing.

These circles were digitally printed on vinyl in various sizes from 12 inches to 3 feet in diameter and became a contemporary art installation exhibited on the windows at Pavilion 374. Spanning 70 feet along the length of the building, the work invited the public to walk through history and engage with the narrative.

These powerful depictions, featuring geometric designs and cultural symbols, were later made into buttons for a limited edition custom handmade exhibition catalogue and limited edition box set of buttons.

“This project inspired me to combine my Chinese Canadian heritage with FULL CIRCLE, the railway symbolism, mandalas, and Chinese coins are in motion, proposing a journey moving forward.”

- Connie Sabo

“I think the art has an amazingly powerful presence together, speaking powerfully and eloquently to the darker histories of the railway in Canada and the West Coast. Our links to history, place and heritage as Indigenous and Chinese Canadian, influenced the work as strong impactful presences.”

- Charlene Vickers

Youth Workshops Dance

Engaging youth was an integral part of The Thought Train Collective, as it was across the world in Cambodia where CCF students were key to the artistic process.

Workshops to connect youth were held during the summer of 2022, including at Arts Umbrella, an arts education non-profit, where the children were doing an inventive visual art summer program connected to the CAG (Contemporary Art Gallery) of Vancouver.

Charlene Vickers hosted a workshop with a teen art group using mixed media to embroider their own “Spirit Circle”.

Arts Umbrella gallery and performance space would be the final station for the Canadian project, venue for the Closing Exchange show on 10 December, held simultaneously with Cambodia’s Full STEAM Ahead finale.

Choreographer and dance artist Kay Barnes worked with a youth group in Vancouver on an interpretation and reimagining of ‘Before the Rain’, the dance piece she created with CCF students in Cambodia.

Kay, who founded Crossmaneuver in 2011 as a vehicle for young artists to be trained and to participate in interdisciplinary works of art, saw the ‘Crossing’ as an original piece which, while it took inspiration from the Cambodian project and was shown as a companion piece, would also work as a stand alone dance.

It was performed after ‘Before the Rain’ at the Closing Exchange event in real time, live-streamed as one continuous piece for viewers.

“I am so happy and pleased with the outcome of this eclectic arts exchange, it was an amazing and interesting process. We were astonished by the work that Cambodian youth artisans were presenting us with.”

-

Zoran Dragelj

“The experience has been fantastic, I loved it. The team here (Vancouver) and there (Cambodia) connecting was so critical for success. That sharing has been essential and what makes magic happen.”

- Mira Malatestinic

Closing Exchange

Months of hard work and collaborative experiences culminated in a grand finale held simultaneously in Cambodia and Canada.

Both journeys had begun in a physical space, the train station, and would end in the same digital, virtual space, in the final destination of this exploration of art through science and technology.

Celebrations in Phnom Penh on 11 December were held at Royal Train Square at the train station with a closing exhibition. With the time difference, Vancouver’s event was held on the 10th to run at the same time.

It opened with an exciting first - the maiden live-streamed Cambodian/ Canadian performance, setting a milestone in technological culture exchanges, which we’re proud to have CCF as part of.

This began with the debut of ‘Before the Rain’ with Ny&Khun of New Cambodian Artists and CCF students in Cambodia, before crossing over live to Canada and the corresponding dance piece choreographed by Kay Barnes and Brynne Harper, performed at Arts Umbrella Vancouver.

Both venues featured creations from previous exhibitions of the Full STEAM Ahead project and FULL CIRCLE, with live demonstrations of CCF’s Drawing Robots and Pendulum Art in Phnom Penh. The final meeting point between the two countries - the Final Exchange

scan/click to watch the final exchange performance

- was a virtual gallery of artwork featuring both the Cambodian and Canadian exhibitions where guests from both countries could enter online and interact with each other in the same digital space.

It was always our intention from the start to end the project in a digital space to reflect the overall narrative of looking towards the future - and technological advance - to understand the past.

This gallery, created by The Thought Train Collective’s Changó Cummings, represented the transition from analogue (separate physical exhibitions) to digital (joined virtual exhibitions).

Walk into the virtual gallery and you can see the 28/29 images created for FULL Circle, using circular imagery, and Cambodia’s response with hexagons.

Zoran’s Rolling Stock video was being played in both locations simultaneously, bringing the concepts full circle to where we started.

We loved this juxtaposition of physical and virtual endings and new beginnings in the Closing Exchange, the end of the line for this project but not we hope for future collaborations.

Digital assets from the exhibitions and activities are available to buy online through Cambodia’’s first digital asset platform, Krama.io

The Future

What now? That’s a question we all began to think about as this journey neared its end.

Certainly, we never intended this project to just finish without a plan - or map - for the next stage.

It was an opportunity to promote STEAM education, expose our students to new ways of thinking and the opportunity to work with local and international artists, but we always envisaged it as more than just that.

We have engaged our students and made connections.

And we see these projects as the platform for CCF to build a foundation for STEAM in the future as art increasingly plays a part in our curriculum, our education, and Cambodia.

We want CCF to lead the way in the use of STEAM in the country, to be part of the revolution that will shape education of the future.

It’s innovation and change - and we are all about transformation at CCF!

The connections we have made - local and international - can help us have a wider impact and influence, in our schools, communities and society.

FULL STEAM Ahead and our counterparts in Canada have begun something to build on, a stepping stone to open dialogue in both countries.

In Cambodia, we want to look at ways we can continue this excitement and momentum.

We would, for instance, love to see a physical exchange between our two countries, a sharing of talent and art, ideas and youth, with our students and collaborators traveling to Canada and a group from there coming here.

It’s a big dream but we hope it might happen one day!

In Canada, they talk of how the projects they’ve been involved with can spark a narrative on current social issues - opening up the past to move forward - with Cambodia providing a cultural reference, common ground.

“This is a fantastic opportunity [for Arts Umbrella] to take this further and work internationally with other groups of kids and artists,” says Mira Malatestinić, who led The Thought Train Collective.

“It would be really exciting to see an indigenous kids program where there’s an opportunity to heal. We’ve got all this Truth and Reconciliation going on right now, but we are struggling with the truth and we need to get that out before we can get reconciliation.

“For a lot of those populations that have been suppressed it’s important to connect with other parts of the world and understand that they are not alone.”

We’re excited for the future. This is not the end of the line. This is just the beginning!

THANKS

This project would not have been possible without the support and commitment of:

Full STEAM Ahead: Nicky Ward, Tony Francis, Andrew Roberts, Phorn La, Som Komsan, Ly Vannmei, Norain Suon, Hean Kim Eng, Sreyrath Loas, Keo Rattana, Ma Sophat, Kerrin Stainton and Scott Neeson.

Artists - Carlos Santoro, Kosal Kiev, Future Headspace, Danillo Halle, Ny Lai and Khun Sreynuch, Kay Barnes, Sean Duffell, Shunsuke Miyatake, Sokvisal Kim.

Krama NFT Marketplace and Royal Train Square

The Thought Train Collective: Mira Malatestinic, Charlene Vickers, Connie Sabo, Zoran Dragelj, Changó Cummings, Kay Barnes, Brynne Harper, Paul Larocque, Patrick O’Neill, Alan Brodie, George Game, Sarah Cavanaugh.

West Coast Railway Association, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre, Arts Umbrella