Eric is Cambodian by his mother, French by his father.
A “kon kat” in Khmer.
On Sundays, we often visit her mother at her house, to share a lunch together.
Once in two, she turns to me, stares at me, and says: “His hair is long, why not go get a hair cut?”
Eric looks like a barang, he has pale skin, brown eyes, and very long silky hair.
Girl’s hair.
Long hair in Cambodia is associated with artists, nonconformists or neglect.
“Mauvais genre” says Eric’s mother.
In Eric’s hair, I see resistance, irony, distance.
The distance between him and his mother.
In-between those who left and those who stay.
Since returning to Cambodia, Eric has been asked to redefine the contours of his skin.
He would never fit with his mother-land’s expectations.
They love each other, but they are always at “un cheveu” from each other.
In Eric’s story, I see an inverted mirror of my own story.
Biography
Eleonore Sok is a French-Cambodian multimedia storyteller. She has settled down in Cambodia in 2015 and has been working as a correspondent for foreign media while developing personal projects. She has made a series of video about Cambodian emerging artists called Swinging Phnom Penh. She has been immersing herself in photography with the Phnom Penh Studio Image in 2015 and 2016, and she has joined the last Angkor Photo Festival’s workshop in 2017. She is currently writing a book about Cambodia. In her images, she explores the questions of identity, origins, family, and relationships.