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The Lexicon of Freedom


សូមប្រកបអក្សរខ្មែរ

The Lexicon of Freedom re-stages a 1986 forgotten Disney film The Girl Who Spelled Freedom (dir. Simon Wincer) to complicate the nationalizing practice of American spelling bees as a cultural project shaping identity and language—explored through the lens of Cambodian diasporic subjectivity. The film is a dramatization of the true life of Linn Yann, a young Cambodian refugee girl, who, along with her family, receives sponsored immigration to the United States. Linn goes on to become a spelling bee champion shortly after.

This multimedia installation comprises a one-channel video with sound, artist books, and painterly interventions on English language learning guides and workbooks that unfurl onto a recreation of a spelling bee stage. A meditative response that seeks to unsettle childhood nostalgia, reflect on early cinematic representation of Asian migration in the aftermath of the Cold War, and question notions of freedom, power, citizenship, and exceptionalism.


03.04.2024–03.29.2024

Featured in Freedom of Expression group exhibition in John Hartell Gallery at Cornell AAP, organized by Cornell Council for the Arts.



Video and image captions

Video Excerpt  (20:54 minutes) / Full Video Length: 50 minutes

សូមប្រកបអក្សរខ្មែរ (The Lexicon of Freedom), 2024. Installation views and details, Freedom of Expression, Hartell Gallery at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, March 4 – 29, 2024. Photos by Hyunjin Park.

Credits

Khmer language consultation for this video was provided by Hannah Phan, senior lecturer at Cornell Arts and Sciences.

Video source: Wincer, Simon, director. The Girl Who Spelled Freedom. Disney, 1986. 1 hr., 30 min.








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