Thursday, 24 May 2012
By Roth Meas
Phnom Penh Post
Photographer
Kim Hak’s series Daun Penh shows scenes around Phnom Penh taken from the
backs of tuk-tuks. The framing represents a blindfold being removed to
reveal the post-conflict city. Photograph: Kim Hak/Phnom Penh Post
After being evacuated from Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge in 1975 and
fleeing abroad, many Cambodians have yet to see how the capital city has
been reborn since.
Now Battambang-born photographer Kim Hak,
31, has decided to use his camera lens to give those émigrés a sense of
the current cityscape, by dedicating a year to capturing various images
of Phnom Penh as it is today.
“In 1975, people in Phnom Penh were forced out of their home,” Kim Hak, 31, says.
“Some
who survived the Khmer Rouge regime fled to other countries, and those
people haven’t had a chance to see their city. When I show these
photographs, they will see their old city.”
Fifty-one of these
Phnom Penh images will be shown in Kim Hak’s exhibition, entitled Daun
Penh, at the Ryum Institute from tomorrow.
After receiving a
degree in tourism management, Kim Hak developed his photography skills
by attending workshops in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and at Phnom
Penh’s French Institute.
His portraits have begun to gain
international recognition – an exhibit entitled ON, about Cambodia’s
colonial architecture, showed in Paris last year, and will show in Le
Pouliguen, France, and Toronto, Canada, this year.
In the Daun
Penh series, Kim Hak uses symbolism to represent both the suffering
endured during the Khmer Rouge and the freedom of moving past this
tragedy.
All the photographs were shot between 5pm and 7pm, a time when Kim Hak says the Khmer Rouge conducted most of its killings.
“I want to express that it’s the time the Khmer Rouge tied people up and brought them for execution.”
It’s also the time people come home from work, a return he likens to people returning to Phnom Penh after years away.
The
back of a tuk-tuk window serves as a thin, horizontal frame for the
photographs, which show people relaxing along the riverside, the
Independence Monument, and other sites around the city.
The
frames are meant to represent the blindfolds the Khmer Rouge would tie
on victims before execution, while the scenes show what is visible
when the blindfold is taken away.
“The sight we see through the
tuk-tuk’s window is like a blindfold that was just removed from a
person’s face,” Kim Hak says of the images.
The Daun Penh
opening will begin at 4pm at the Reyum Institute, #47 St 178, Phnom
Penh, and it will be on display for three weeks.
To contact the reporter on this story: Roth Meas at roth.meas@phnompenhpost.com
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