stars Cambodia 2018

The stars Cambodia alumni study tour was held from 4-7 March 2018 under the banner Smiling Gecko: Sustainability at its best.

We are delighted to invite you to attend the stars Cambodia alumni study tour 2018, which will take place right after the stars Singapore symposium. In cooperation with Smiling Gecko (SG) and Hannes Schmid (see PS), we are proud to present you the exclusive opportunity to discover Cambodia from different angles, with a particular focus on the sustainable development project Smiling Gecko. 

Since the middle of the last century, Cambodia has been ravaged by decades of civil war and suffered terribly during the Vietnam war and the terror regime of the Khmer Rouge.To provide relief to the needy children and families in Cambodia, Smiling Gecko is pursuing a holistic approach whose objective is to enable and promote the ability for the rural population to live a self-determined life. Following its mission of «Cambodians help Cambodians», the organisation provides direct aid to disadvantaged people in the country, supporting local job initiatives and promoting self-help among the rural population focusing on fighting the causes of poverty and helping people to help themselves. To this end, SG launched a project on a previously acquired site to the North of Phnom Penh whose objective is to provide several thousand Cambodians with future job training and a regular income in the sectors of agriculture, tourism, industry, and trade. In future, the proceeds are intended to cover the operating costs of the innovative pilot school, which is also part of the cluster and provideseducation to nearly 1,000 children (from preschool to senior high school).

PS: Smiling Gecko was founded in 2012 by the artist Hannes Schmid.

The Swiss photo artist Hannes Schmid (born in Zurich in 1946) has, since the early 1970s, set up an impressive photo archive. In the 1990s he shaped his figure of the cowboy which has become a global icon and likewise entered into the world of conceptual art. Also the extensive publication “Hannes Schmid – Rockstars” featuring his unique portrayals of famous musicians (Edition Patrick Frey, 2009) stirred great attention. Hannes Schmid has always been invested in social projects, such as for the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation or Pro Infirmis. Further significant projects include For Gods Only, The Flow of Life, Thaipusam, and Moment of a Moment. In parallel to his photographic works, Schmid has turned to film and installation art. Numerous museums have exhibited his works, e.g. the Fotomuseum in Winterthur, the Folkwang Museum in Essen, the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, the Brooklyn Museum (New York), or the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst in Leipzig. From March to July 2013, the Kunstmuseum Berne featured the large-scale exhibition Real Stories which, accompanied by a catalog of 500 pages, gave a great overview on Hannes Schmid’s oeuvre. In 2014, his installation MOMENTOUS was shown at the renowned Today Art Museum in Beijing.
www.smilinggecko.ch