Palita Chunsaengchan

Currently, I am CLA faculty partner for the Southeast Asian Diaspora Project’s residency at Liberal Arts Engagement Hub (2025-26) with partial support from UMN’s Immigration History Research Center. As an academic, it has been an absolute honor to work with our non-profit community partner to promote historical knowledge and understanding about the diasporic journey of Southeast Asian communities in Minnesota. Please follow the incredible community-focused organization, the SEAD, for more information about upcoming events.

From 2022 to 2024, I hosted and co-hosted several public events, for the series Southeast Asian Cinema and Its Diaspora: Theory/Praxis/Politics, a project that seeks to reduce the distance between academic scholarship and the general public. The series advocate not only the significance of Southeast Asia as a productive site in which the understanding of Asia could be reified but also highlight labor of those who make cinema amidst political turmoils in Southeast Asia.

All of the events were funded by the Imagine Fund Special Events, Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota. I sincerely thank my co-organizer, co-moderator, Elizabeth Wijaya (Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Studies, University of Toronto) and staffs at the Asian Institute and the Institute for Advanced Study for all the wonderful collaboration and support.

Creative Collaboration

FREETIME (2022) 

Artist residency project by Anocha Suwichakornpong at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

I participated as a subtitle editor and controllerin this live staged performance of Suwichakornpong’s new film project. The staging of the texts on the screen used as a backdrop of a theatrical space mimics the way in which subtitles are shown in movies. The synchronous liveness of the text that needs to match the dialogue spoken on stage complicates, nonetheless, the boundary of performance in cinema and theater. The subtitle controller acted in conjunction with the actresses on stage, and yet, remained in the dark, on the top row of the theater.

Public Events