“One of the reasons I came to stay in Cambodia is that I knew I would be able to witness how a country rises from its ashes, climbing from a physically flattened, mentally challenged and traumatized state to a normal country, going through the failing and learning process every country goes through. The special thing with Cambodia is that it is happening at a very fast pace. No time to breathe and there is another development issue popping up”, says John Vink. He moved to the country ten years ago and has documented the different forms of economic development in several books and eBooks.
The most recent one, A Fine Thread, was done in collaboration with the journalist Robert Carmichael. This long work of reportage explores Cambodian industry through 10 chapters, 500 images and 9,000 words. Eighty percent of the population still lives off agriculture, but soon they’ll be forced to move to cities to survive due to the devouring expansion of the textile and tourism industries. The frantic growth has affected social equilibrium, population flow, the status of women, the ambitions of the country’s youth and political protest movements. “Now ‘Hun Sen Must Go’ is heard less than ‘We want $160!’” writes Vink of a workers’ demonstration in December 2013.
The new year began brutally in Phnom Penh following the elections. The workers’ demonstrations in early January were met with death sentences and the loss of the right to gather in public places. A Fine Thread features several bloody pictures, but Vink’s portrait of the worker’s is more substantial. He follows them off the streets. We see women lined up in factories next to piles of cotton waiting to be sewn, the men who supervise and cook, the daily commutes standing in the backs of crowded pickup trucks, the medical appointments, phone calls during breaks. And we also see them in their spare time, singing, dancing and drinking. It’s the full picture that gives voice to their demands.
BOOK
A Fine Thread
eBook available on iTunes store
Texts by Robert Carmichael, photographs by John Vink.
“A Fine Thread” contains 10 chapters with about 500 photographs, a short multimedia piece and a 9,000 word text.
$4.99 USD
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/a-fine-thread/id793868280?ls=1&mt=11
http://www.johnvink.com
https://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_9_VForm&ERID=24KL535DY0
