These are photos by Dimitri Pilalis, a Brazilian photographer who visited some Cambodian hospitals. I think they’re extraordinarily powerful. Looking at these, put yourself in the place of the patients. Of the wives and mothers and fathers. Of the doctors and orderlies. This is not our world, it’s the world we visit.
Dimitri has also to his credit an amazing (overused word, but I mean it) set of photos from a mental hospital in Indonesia. They were published in Southeast Asian Globe, January 4, 2013, with a text by Dene Mullen, in an article titled Bleak House. It’s almost unbearable to look at these images (just one them shown below). They’re not noir – noir is a form of poetry, it’s not quite real. These are far too real. What’s done for mental illness in Cambodia? Maybe even less than this.
Philip J Coggan 