The Knot - A Project of Social Design in Cambodia

Bebo Storti and Lella Costa

In this desolated script of an “engaged movie” where extraordinarily paid actors for once free themselves from their being immaterial billionaires, a small tear opens up to a blue sky.
Tiny things, small initiatives, nothing resounding. It is the outcome of commitment and goodness of a few people who do want to give hope to those people who have none. It reminds us that a century ago we were also people without rights, people without saints in paradise.
I call these jewels “little joys”, wonders of care, products of goodwill of a few sensitive people. The work of women and children, who in that “exotic country” count for nothing. They are the very last ones. Thanks to this project, they learn that a person is never alone, that everybody can free oneself. These knots allow seeing beyond one’s sea;
a sea that takes us to unknown places, places of the heart. We used to refer to Cambodia as a very exotic place, full of wonders. But places like Cambodia, and their people seemed to be so far away and so appealing to us, indeed because of distance and diversity. A diversity that did not bother us or did not make us suffer from guilt. Times have changed; everything is closer and more painful. A bank can destroy the economy of a small country as long as that country has petrol or diamonds.
Westerners on a sex tour can turn a dream place into an open-sky brothel. Women and children become commodities. Many female and children turn their bodies into merchandise, because otherwise they are just crowds of underpaid, young workers.

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