[This is an archived post and may not display correctly on our new website.]

Kim Hak

Left Behind
Cambodia   www.kimhak.com

White Building in Phnom Penh, for a short period of time, human traces have been erased. Part of Bassac Front Development (Riverfront) in the 60s, White Building was designed by a Cambodian architect Lu Ban Hap, over sighted by Cambodian architect Vann Molyvann and Russian-French born engineer Vladimir Bodiansky. Inaugurated in 1963, the White Building was designed to house moderate-income tenants, mainly artists. After victory over Khmer Rouge in 1979, Ministry of Culture & Fine Arts had gathered survivors’ artists by offering few hundred families each apartment for living in the White Building as it is next to the former Preah Suramarit national theatre. I had spent the last two months before the destruction of the building in July 2017 with the mostly 2500 people living there. Looking at the objects people left in their places, I document in a poetic approach their lives. “Left Behind”, I continues with this series is work about History and Memory.