Shooting at the Moon
Shooting at the Moon: Peace Workers in Cambodia Tell Their Stories
A photographic exhibition at the Sydney Town Hall October 9-16 and from October 18 in Canberra at Old Parliament House.
Heide Smith's photographs evoke the contradiction that is Cambodia — the breathtaking beauty of the Tonle Sap river at sunset, the paddy fields dotted with Cambodia's distinctive sugar palm, the traditional dancer caught in an exquisite pose in the fairy tale palace.
These romantic images are counterposed with victims of the bloody war lying strained on a bare hospital bed or riding legless on a home-made wheelchair down the main road between smoke-belching trucks, and of valuable old books lying in tatters on the floor of the National Library awaiting skilled staff to conserve and restore them.
Marje Prior has captioned the images with her own comments and with excerpts from interviews she held with more than 50 Australians and Cambodians on their work in Cambodia for the book with the same title as the exhibition, to be published later in 1993 by MPA Publications, PO Box 84, Ainslie ACT 2602. Price $29.95.