le bec en l’air Editions presents Philong Sovan’s book, City Night Light, an immersion, at night, in contemporary Cambodia revealed by cinematic light. Christian Caujolle wrote the text of which here is an extract:
Straight behind the welded metal gate, he seems totally frozen but his left hand, as if abandoned, gives fragility to this portrait of a teenager staring fixedly at the lens. Located in Koh Dach, very close to Phnom Penh, the image dates from 2020, at the very end of the year. In the street, sitting on the edge of a low wall with behind her a gate whose black railings shine slightly, she too fixes the lens. She holds a young child in her arms. She does not smile, she is serious or indifferent and one cannot say that she is posing. She agrees to give herself to photography. It was in 2010, in Siem Reap, the small town that gives access to the temples of Angkor. And, beyond time, these two still children who do not know each other and have little chance of meeting each other become brothers and sisters in photography. Bathed in the same light that reveals them, they are part of a device that questions the portrait as much as it affirms a point of view in relation to time, change and permanence. It therefore took ten years for Philong Sovan to conclude his project of exploring Cambodian cities at night.
