Evening Event with Filmmaker Kalyanee Mam
engaged her schoolwide audience in a question and answer dialogue about what physical
home means to us all, where we have our roots, and about the vulnerability of attatchment.
There once lay a small island off the coast of the forested Koh Kong province that now
sits rearranged in Singapore. The island was largely uninhabited, but boasted fruitful mangroves
and a century’s worth of waves on its weathered shores. To one woman it was a home away
from home, and she would often spend nights lying on its warm sands. Dredged from the crystal
waters of Cambodian seas and shipped, that white sand (and the infrastructure, way of life, and
ecosystem buried within it) is now packed tightly on the Singaporan coast and fashioned into a
peninsula. Atop that stolen earth sits Singapore’s ecological tourist attraction the Cloud Forest,
an artificial waterfall with painted moss rocks and the lush, plastic vegetation of the tropical
highlands all encased by a glass bubble not to be popped.
sits rearranged in Singapore. The island was largely uninhabited, but boasted fruitful mangroves
and a century’s worth of waves on its weathered shores. To one woman it was a home away
from home, and she would often spend nights lying on its warm sands. Dredged from the crystal
waters of Cambodian seas and shipped, that white sand (and the infrastructure, way of life, and
ecosystem buried within it) is now packed tightly on the Singaporan coast and fashioned into a
peninsula. Atop that stolen earth sits Singapore’s ecological tourist attraction the Cloud Forest,
an artificial waterfall with painted moss rocks and the lush, plastic vegetation of the tropical
highlands all encased by a glass bubble not to be popped.
Kalyanee Mam’s journalistic documentary Lost World traces the harrowing impacts of
sand dredging in Cambodia which has hit fisherwomen the hardest. Often forced to leave their
families behind in search of work further and further from home, these women’s livelihoods are
being dredged out from under them. The crabs and mussels once plentiful now have no island
beach to nestle into. Schools of fish are displaced. And with an imminent threat to business, the
island populations could be next to leave.
sand dredging in Cambodia which has hit fisherwomen the hardest. Often forced to leave their
families behind in search of work further and further from home, these women’s livelihoods are
being dredged out from under them. The crabs and mussels once plentiful now have no island
beach to nestle into. Schools of fish are displaced. And with an imminent threat to business, the
island populations could be next to leave.
Comments
Post a Comment