ដូនពេញ . DAUN PENH

“Daun Pehn”, inspired by the blindfold that covered the eyes of victims before execution.

Thursday, April 17, 1975, was an ordinary day in most of the world: overcast but mild in Europe, sunny but windy in America. In Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, the sky turned black. The nightmare began. The victorious Khmer Rouge entered the city and emptied it of its inhabitants. Within one week, more than two million people were forced into the countryside under a blazing sun and suffocating atmosphere. The most educated people were quickly executed, their eyes covered by black thin fabric a short time before their deaths. For three years, eight months and twenty days, the city once known as the Pearl of Southeast Asia was invaded by a strange and disturbing silence.

After the fall of the Pol Pot regime, the survivors returned to a city neglected and haunted by the souls that never returned. There is no place without memory, and Phnom Penh is no exception. As the city grows rapidly today, I decided to walk its streets and avenues, squares and alleys, boulevards and dead ends, trying to look through the eyes of those who departed and must not be forgotten. I want to explore the city and reveal its successive layers, past and present, to look towards the future. To observe  differently is to see something else and the town’s corners and bends suddenly change. Like a thriller. The rain in the evening, through the attic window of the traditional Tuk Tuk. Faraway, lights are on, small lights in the golden hour on the streets between the new buildings. The rain becomes tears, tears for memory…

“Daun Penh” is dedicated to the victims who were forced to leave Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge regime, never to return to their beloved city. It is also for the survivors in the Cambodian diaspora who fled to the third countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Europe, Canada, and the United States.

Return home, Cambodia !!!….

Phnom Penh, 2011 – 2012