29 November 2021

Cambodia genocide


I think I tried to post this a million years ago in this Blog space but it never worked due to technical problems. I made it nine years ago (so Vimeo reminds me). I went to Cambodia around 2005 on one of my drawing trips to Vietnam and I loved it. But it seems sad to me for a few reasons. The main one was that Pol Pot had killed off so much of the male population as well as most of the University trained citizens, both women and men. But then the children were not spared either. Phenom Penh was a poor city and people despaired even after so many years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. At the museum I made these photos and found myself wanting to make a slide show of it but it took me several years to face it. The beautiful music of Arvo Part accompanies these pictures. I regret a little that his music has since become so popular, so ubiquitous everywhere, but then, he deserves success. 

I re-watched this recently, as I have a number of times over the years. It always hits me hard. And it's always in the most fragile place where I cannot protect myself from that terrible pain in front of such cruelty that one sees in the dark corners of humanity. When seeing this I always need a box of tissues nearby.


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