Kim Hak is a young Cambodian photographer who has achieved international recognition. His website is here. These images are from his project Unity – each is a memory of the Pol Pot years. There’s an interview in the excellent Banyan Blog, here, which explains. Some are obvious – the rubber sandals, for example, are the footwear of the KR, next to a bare footprint and a branch of thorns for the workers. Some are less so – the chicken in a teakettle (last image) is from Kim Hak’s mother, who remembers stealing a chicken and boiling it in a kettle for her husband when he was very ill, an act that could have led to death for both of them.
I have a sort of moral/aesthetic problem – how can such images come from such horror? Never mind, they are undeniably beautiful to look at.
Philip J Coggan 