Neak Sophal’s portraits look deep into Khmer identity, her generation’s doubts and torments. Who are we? How can people live with the omnipresent memory of genocide?
They pose simply, enigmatic statues with faces hidden by big leaves or mundane objects.
Leaf is a series shot in Wat Po village, Takeo Province, south of Sophal’s home town of Phnom Penh. It shows Cambodia’s rural youth, its future, who must leave for the city, even for Thailand, to sell themselves to survive and send money home. Sonleuk – “leaves” in Cambodian – symbolise the young who are indispensable to the country as leaves are to a tree.
Sophal protests silently against climate change, deforestation, and massive problems caused by the dams on the Mekong River. She questions the widening gap between the abandoned countryside, where land is being appropriated, and the cities, which are growing out of control.
As Sophal says, “There’s no place for these young people in society; that’s why I hide their faces. They can’t clearly see what’s at stake, and society at large now ignores them; it doesn’t even see them.”
In Sophal’s latest series, Hang On, we are in Phnom Penh. Builders, students, sweepers, fishermen, office workers, hotel employees strike the same poses as the rural teenagers. But here, the leaves give way to objects representing each person’s occupation. Are we identified nowadays by our job? Our social standing? The woman selling traditional headgear is juxtaposed with the man selling baseball caps from China; ladies offer plastic baskets or wicker utensils. Sophal highlights changes in consumption and the effects of globalisation.
Landskrona Photo Festival
September 8-17, 2017
Landskrona
Sweden
http://www.landskronafoto.org/en/fotofestival-2017/
