An ongoing exploration into diaspora identity, beginning from my own mixed heritage as British-Khmer.
EAST BEAT journeys into the music of East & South-East Asia and the diasporas. Up until recently, there was a monthly internet radio show, with a focus on experimental electronic music, broadcast on Liverpool’s Melodic Distraction. You can listen to the show archive here. I also organised With Love from Vietnam – an Arts Council funded workshop, hosted in collaboration with DINA. Artist, Cường Minh Bá Phạm, and linguist, Hoa Le, introduced participants to a rich and sometimes forgotten era of Vietnamese music from the 1950’s and 60’s.
THREAD (ខ្សែស្រឡាយ) is an immersive audio-visual piece being developed in collaboration with artists Laura Page (photography and film) and Leon Trimble (audio-visual electronics). It takes my experiences as a member of the Cambodian diaspora as its starting-point and uses them as a springboard for a broader reflection on questions about identity and belonging at a distance.
I am also involved with the ESEA ARTISTS’ FUTURES project, which is a collective imagining of new landscapes for East & South-East Asian artists in the UK and beyond.
Komarine Romdenh-Romluc 