ទុកចោល . LEFT BEHIND
At then White Building in Phnom Penh, for a short window of time, human traces were erased.
Part of the Bassac Front Development (Riverfront) in the 1960s, the White Building was designed by Cambodian architect Lu Ban Hap, under the oversight of Cambodian architect Vann Molyvann and Russian-French engineer Vladimir Bodiansky. Inaugurated in 1963, the White Building was designed to house moderate-income tenants, mainly artists.
After the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts gathered surviving artists and resettled them in the White Building, offering a few hundred families apartments, due to its location next to the former Preah Suramarit national theatre. In the few months leading up to the demolition of the building in July 2017, I spent time with the roughly 2500 people still living there. Through the objects people had left behind, I documented their lives in a poetic way.
White Building, your soul has given way to a gambling casino …
Phnom Penh, 2017