Framing the Khmer Rouge
Cambodia has long been presented to the world through the viewfinders of foreign photographers – but that’s slowly starting to change.
By Charles Fox
January 28, 2021

A worker is silhouetted as he pulls his fishing net at the flooded land following recent rain in Chres village on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, September 1, 2020.
Credit: AP Photo/Heng Sinith

In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge have left deep and lasting scars on the land, the people, and the culture. The ultra-communist government killed nearly 2 million people between 1975 and 1979, including most of the country’s intellectuals and artists. As a result, those who initially documented these lasting effects were foreign photographers, but this has slowly begun to change, with Cambodian photographers producing increasingly singular work, often in spite of the lack of access to resources and formal education. How has this change come about? And why is it significant?

The Early Years: Cambodia Through a Foreign Lens

For all its impact on Cambodia and its people, the Khmer Rouge regime has overwhelmingly been framed by images taken by international photojournalists. Seminal work, such as Roland Neveu’s “The Fall of Phnom Penh,” captured the entrance of the Khmer Rouge’s black-clad soldiers into the capital Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. And there was John Burgess, who found himself on assignment in 1980 with the Washington Post. His images show the rebirth of Phnom Penh, offering a snapshot of the country’s resilience after four years of hell.

Nic Dunlop’s book “The Lost Executioner” stands out in its evolution beyond the image. The book chronicles the rise and fall of Comrade Duch, the notorious head of the Khmer Rouge prison S-21. Dunlop weaves a historical account with his own journey to find Duch, who melted back into the Cambodian countryside after the fall of the regime in January 1979. His search for Duch was aided by a photograph of the elusive official, which he showed to individuals as a prompt to conversation. As an image maker, Dunlop’s use of this portrait as a catalyst to his investigation, rather than a narrow focus on the frame, offers a poignant example of the limitations of photography to convey complex historical narratives.

In 1989, about 10 years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, John Vink entered the country on his first assignment for the French newspaper Liberation. Vink would end up dedicating 16 years to living and working in Cambodia. Vink’s work, rooted in an unfaltering drive, has seen him publish a range of books, such as “Quest for Land,” which covers his in-depth reportage on land rights issues. Indeed, much of his work has been about the question of land, which can be traced back to the Khmer Rouge abolition of land titles and now related to Cambodia’s politics. “I think every aspect I covered after that in Cambodia can somehow be related to those issues,” Vink says.

The Rise of the Cambodian Photographer

Vink is also well-known for the support he has given to the development of young Cambodian photographers like Vandy Rattana, whose work “Bomb Ponds” show the scars of the land resulting from the illegal bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

Rattana is one of the new generation of Cambodian photographers, some of whom have banded together in emerging collectives, such as the multidisciplinary Sa Sa Arts, which offers photography courses alongside more established institutions such as the international Angkor Photo Festival. Despite not receiving the benefits of formal training in photography, this young generation has found alternative ways to address through their work the complex issues facing contemporary Cambodia.

One major contrast with foreign photojournalists is that their work is not centered in documentary. Instead, it skips with ease across and beyond photography. Unbound by genre or codes of production, their work feels more immediate.

For example, Lim Sokchanlina responds to a range of questions in both his practice and teaching of photography. His deep interest in how people live and work, and how political decisions change their environment, have fed into the production of his recent work “National Road Number 5,” an extended series of photographs of houses which have been cut in half to clear the way for a road-widening project. Lina is acutely aware of what has been lost and notes the impact of the Khmer Rouge on Cambodian image making. “It’s still important to talk about the Khmer Rouge through photography,” he says. “It’s part of who we are and where we come from. I say it through my work but not directly, it’s far behind the stories but not disconnected.”
Full article: https://thediplomat.com/2021/01/framing ... mer-rouge/