Psycho

In the midst of my family’s financial crisis, during my sophomore year of college in 2017, I had to take freelance jobs to support my studies. On top of this my love life fell apart, my best friend and I breaking up. My grades fell and I could no longer concentrate in class. I felt like I had been living two different lives; in day-to-day life everyone saw a son, a brother, a student, a friend, a teenager—but I saw someone struggling with clinical depression and anxiety disorder. I was devastated and lost during those years, and thought of dropping out and giving up on life a few times. I went to art galleries and exhibitions alone to isolate myself from the world I had known. That is, until I found Sa Sa Art Projects.

Joining the Contemporary and Documentary Photography Class at Sa Sa Art Projects in 2019 was a huge transition, and was even more significant because I worked simultaneously as a production intern at Anti-Archive film company. These experiences shifted my perception and enlightened me to think more critically about current social issues I have encountered such as mental health, discrimination towards LGBTQ people and prostitution. During that time, I discovered that art had the power to heal my internal pain and fix my broken pieces, empowering me to express my thoughts and feelings with the world. Through the creation of art, I understand my own hidden emotions and identity, find a sense of peace.

Psycho, my first short film conveying my mental experience and unresolved, lingering feelings from the past, helped me refocus my existence and live in the present. What’s important, I found myself in the process of working on Deficiency for the Contemporary and Documentary Photography class exhibition. For this project, I followed a sex worker I had met. Her story made me empathic and compassionate, as she went through physical and emotional abuse from her former husband. On top of this, a gas explosion left her poor with keloid scars on her right hand and face. I developed a respect towards sex workers after that.

I now yearn to unearth the meaning of life, by exploring and documenting the complexities of humanity. Because I believe art has the power to heal the pain from the past, I directed Blossom in the Summer, a documentary film to understand the inner soul of a gay artist dancing to preserve robam kbach boran or Khmer classical dance, and thereby evolving contemporary dance in the process. By observing others and sharing their stories, I reflect on my inner thoughts and reevaluate my values and beliefs, establishing a stronger sense of my own identity and allowing myself to grow and heal.