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Y-Dang Troeung
Landbridge [life in fragments]
Refugee Lifeworlds
CV
Projects
Landbridge Productions
Teaching
Easter Epic
Y-Dang Troeung
Landbridge [life in fragments]
Refugee Lifeworlds
CV
Projects
Landbridge Productions
Teaching
Easter Epic
PROJECTS
"Refugee Lifeworlds: The Afterlife of the Cold War in Cambodia" (Temple UP, 2022) investigates how the Cambodian refugee archive pushes back against the ongoing legacies of the Cold War in Cambodia. The book routes questions about disability and refugee personhood through the afterlife of war and genocide in Cambodia, centring the kapok tree as a Khmer onto-epistemology of refugee being and survival. The book blends scholarly analysis with fragments of family anecdotes, crafting a form of autotheory to address the gaps in theory and knowledge where conventional academic language fails.
“Easter Epic” is a short narrative film co-directed by Y-Dang Troeung and Alejandro Yoshizawa through the collaborative media lab Landbridge Productions. Adapted from a section of Y-Dang Troeung’s memoir, Landbridge, the film recounts the events of one day in the life of a Cambodian refugee family soon after their resettlement in small-town Goderich, Ontario, in the region also known as “Alice Munro Country.” The events of this day are interwoven with scenes from a small slice of Canadian history —what has come to be known as “The Easter Epic,” the longest game 7 overtime hockey game in NHL history, which took place on April 18, 1987. The game was played between the Washington Capitals and the New York Islanders, going into quadruple overtime and the early hours of April 19. The film explores the intersections between twentieth-century global history, Canadian national memory, and personal family stories. It probes the deeper meaning of refugee resettlement and what it means to survive and remake life in the aftermath of loss, displacement, and family tragedy.
"Refugee Worldmaking: The Vietnam War in Canadian Literature" is a forthcoming guest-edited special issue of the journal Canadian Literature (Issue 246). The issue includes scholarly essays, book reviews, and two forum discussions--all which aim to recast the discussion about the U.S. wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos through a Southeast Asian / Southeast Asian Canadian refugee lens.
"Remembering Cambodian Border Camps, 40 Years Later" The following forum essay derives from the exhibition “Remembering Cambodian Borders, 40 Years Later,” which took place from July 1, 2021 to September 31, 2021 between Vancouver, Phnom Penh, Paris, London, and Lowell. A collaboration between myself and Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center in Phnom Penh (founded by critically acclaimed Cambodian director Rithy Panh), the exhibition emerged in response to what has been heralded as “Cambodia’s artistic renaissance” or “Khmer Renaissance.”
All material © Y-Dang Troeung, 2021