Portraits from a time of genocide

Portraits from a time of genocide

Facing Death: Portraits from Cambodia's Killing Fields
Australian Centre for Photography, Paddington (Sydney)
Tues-Sat, 11am-6pm, until July 5.

When Cambodian rebels and Vietnamese troops overthrew the Pol Pot regime in early 1979, one of many grisly discoveries was the prison of Tuol Sleng in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Previously a high school, Tuol Sleng had been turned by the Khmer Rouge into a torture and execution centre, primarily for suspected KR dissidents and their families. More than 14,000 men, women and children entered the prison; only seven survivors are known.

The KR administration of Tuol Sleng kept extensive records of its prisoners, including photographs. Some of these were lost when the regime fell and in the months of hardship that followed. The new government turned Tuol Sleng into a museum and covered whole walls with the remaining photographs — as both a memorial to the victims and a means by which Cambodians might learn what had happened to vanished relatives.

In 1993, two US photographers, Chris Riley and Doug Niven, established the Photo Archive Group to clean, catalogue and archive the remaining 6000 negatives, which were in danger of being destroyed by Phnom Penh's tropical climate.

This exhibition presents a selection of 100 photographic prints from the archive, a moving testimony to the horrors of the Pol Pot regime. It is accompanied by various resource and information materials, displays compiled by Amnesty International and Community Aid Abroad, a BBC documentary and a computer link to the Cambodian Genocide Program.

On Saturdays, volunteer guides from the Cambodian community are present to answer questions. Admission to the exhibit is free.

From GLW issue 278