- Photography and War – Pippa Oldfield October 31, 2019
Reaktion books have an excellent series on photographic issues and theme, Exposures. A recent edition is by Pippa Oldfield, on Photography and War.
The book is ...
Read more... - Week Sixteen Reflections October 27, 2019
Today is Deepavali / Diwali, the traditional festival of light, when there is victory over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance, and a most ...
Read more... - At the University of Leeds October 25, 2019
I was in Leeds this week, giving my first lecture to the MA Media and Communications students. I had been invited by Dr. Jim Brogden, Programme Leader ...
Read more... - A Constructed Image October 16, 2019
As I am closing in on the final choices and hanging plan – and nearing the time that I need to write a Critical Review ...
Read more... - Quotes and Photographs October 13, 2019
On Friday, I gave a talk to the Frome Wessex Camera Club, entitled ‘Unfinished Stories – From Genocide to Hope’. I was gratified that it ...
Read more... - Week Thirteen Reflections – a photograph is ‘and’ not ‘or’ October 9, 2019
I want to pull a particular point out of some of my research on ‘atrocity’ images. That is, that a photograph always have a multiplicity ...
Read more... - A research-led practice September 26, 2019
The MA is now in its 21st month. In that time I have flown almost exactly 50,000 miles to and from Cambodia. Looking at my ...
Read more... - Book files sent to Printers September 23, 2019
Well. it is done. The Indesign and PDF ‘ready to print’ files have all been sent to pour printers in Phnom Penh. We are missing ...
Read more... - Auschwitz & Memory September 23, 2019
Over the past 18 months, I have spent a good deal of time researching atrocity and the ethics of images of such. In this I ...
Read more... - Changing the Story September 20, 2019
Frank Finlay, Dean of Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures at the University of Leeds put me in touch with Paul Cooke. Paul is Professor ...
Read more... - Multi-media August 20, 2019
I finally got around to working through some ‘road trip’ photography from my last Cambodia visit. When Simeth and I were driving north, I decided ...
Read more... - RPS Contemporary Group August 2, 2019
I had noted in May that the RPS Contemporary Group planned to publish some of my work. Well, on returning from Rencontres d’Arles and vacation, ...
Read more... - Week Eight Reflections July 28, 2019
This was our first visit to Rencontres d’Arles, and it will not be the last. A terrific experience. The venues and presentation puts Paris Photo, ...
Read more... - A Sense of Place July 13, 2019
I have been reading James Tyner’s book, The Killing of Cambodia: Geography, Genocide and the Unmasking of Space.
It is well established that in defining Year Zero, ...
Read more... - Jeff Hays – A ‘New’ Source of Information July 4, 2019
It is terrific when one find new sources of information on Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge, even though I am reasonably well acquainted with a ...
Read more... - Legal Complexities – the ECCC June 30, 2019
In 2003 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution approving a proposed agreement reached between the UN and Cambodia concerning the prosecution of those ...
Read more... - Leang Seckon – Art and History May 1, 2019
Leang Seckon was born in Prey Veng Province in the early 1970s, and thus was a child during Khmer Rouge times. He graduated from the Royal ...
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- Afterwards April 16, 2019
I thought that I had posted about Afterwards before, but somehow it got missed. It was one of the first books that I bought, early ...
Read more... - Coleridge, Imagination and Fancy April 11, 2019
In thinking through the upcoming critical review, I realise that I have been working in two parallel directions.
First, my photography has become increasingly abstract, traces of what ...
Read more... - Towards a Critical Review April 9, 2019
I am collecting some of the most inspirational and appropriate quotes from my research, as used in various CRJ posts over the past 15 months, with the references or ...
Read more... - Informing Contexts – Oral Presentation April 7, 2019
Partly because of some misguided feedback at the Falmouth F2F, and partly because I felt a need to ‘go back the beginning’ to explain my ...
Read more... - Interview with Mak Remissa March 31, 2019
Mak Remissa is arguably the most successful and important photographer working in Cambodia today. He is a working photojournalist, and is heavily involved in the ...
Read more... - The University of Leeds March 21, 2019
I have been a Visiting Professor at Leeds, my Alma Mater, for the last 8 years, working with the Leeds University Business School (LUBS) and ...
Read more... - Responses & Responsibilities March 16, 2019
James Elkins, in What Photography Is (2011), analyses photographs from 1905 of Lingqi, the Chinese ‘death by a thousand cuts’. (chapter 6, pg 177-220). I ...
Read more... - Week Four Reflections February 27, 2019
This is a rather delayed post on last week’s reflections, as it has been a busy (thankfully, productive) trip, so these comments are in the ...
Read more... - Photographing the Holocaust – Janina Struk February 16, 2019
I have just finished Janina Struk’s Photographing The Holocaust. Michelle Caswell’s Archiving the Unspeakable was ‘book of the year’ for me last year, Struk’s might ...
Read more... - IC Week One Reflections February 2, 2019
It has been a good start to the new module, with a good range of intellectual content, and helpful first online discussions with Michelle and ...
Read more... - David Goldblatt February 2, 2019
‘I suppose at best, I had hoped we might see ourselves revealed, as it were, by a mirror held up to ourselves’
David Goldblatt, 2017.
I was ...
Read more... - Soviet Holocaust Photography January 29, 2019
I have just been reading a paper written by David Shneer, in the Humanity Journal, 2014, University of Pennsylvania. Shneer discusses the approach taken by ...
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- Positions and Practice Oral Presentation – Final April 1, 2018
YouTube Original
April 17th, 1975, after years of war, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh.
Within twenty-four hours they emptied the city of 2 million people, and ...
Read more... - Martha Rosler, Decoys and Disruptions March 20, 2018
Martha Rosler, Decoys and Disruptions (2004)
Lookers, Buyers, Dealers And Makers: Thoughts On Audience (1979)
‘More and more clearly the subject of art has become the self ...
Read more... - The Cruel Radiance – Susie Linfield March 18, 2018
I just read The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political violence, by Susie Linfield (University of Chicago Press, 2010), and found it totally fascinating. Essentially, Linfield ...
Read more... - Other than … Year Zero February 4, 2018
In April 1994, Ingrid and I first visited Cambodia, with our three youngest children. Michala was 6, Victoria was 4, and Dan was just over ...
Read more... - Possible Cambodia documentary project January 24, 2018
We first visited Cambodia in 1994, with our three youngest children, Michala, Vicky & Dan. Dan was 18 months old at the time. And we ...
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- Surfaces & Strategies Oral Presentation August 19, 2018
I am exploring the long-term impact of the Khmer Rouge Genocide, and especially its impact on education. This includes revisiting our family history with that ...
Read more... - Work in Progress – I missed my Mother August 18, 2018
I have completed the S&S WIP selection.
Posts have already been written which explain my rational on intimacy, landscape and negative traces.
Some of my fellow students ...
Read more... - First They Killed My Father August 16, 2018
In 2017, the movie First They Killed My Father was released. It was directed by Angelina Jolie, and producers included the acclaimed Cambodian filmmaker, Rithy ...
Read more... - WIP – Telling Sarath’s Story in the Jungle August 9, 2018
Part of this project is to tell the personal stories of the people who survived the Genocide. I am using video, and will include segments ...
Read more... - Week Nine reflections – Cambodian Narrative August 4, 2018
It was a very busy but productive time in Cambodia.
My reflections this week (partly whilst sitting on the plane home) are about clarifying the narrative. ...
Read more... - My Friend’s Mother Passed Away – I Missed My Mother July 15, 2018
The first fully-translated ‘story’ from Sarath. Warning: gruesome reading in parts.
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It was possibly in 1977, I do not know for sure, but it was a ...
Read more... - Dark Tourism July 12, 2018
To me, ‘Dark Tourism‘ is rather inevitable. Places like Tuol Sleng in Cambodia seem to do a better job of earning tourist dollars than in ...
Read more... - Ghosts, Traces & Stories June 9, 2018
I am looking for ways to tell today’s story whilst also bringing yesterday’s in front of the viewer.
Anyone who has visited a Genocide Museum, anywhere ...
Read more... - It’s Not All About Genocide June 8, 2018
It has always been my intent to go back and re-imagine the journey that we took with Sarath, though I have, to now, seen that ...
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- Sustainable Prospects – Grades – Where To, Now? January 14, 2019
I have just received the grades for Sustainable Prospects – 70% overall, Distinction level, I assume, which is pretty much in line with Surfaces & ...
Read more... - Reflections at Year End December 11, 2018
On Monday, 10th December, I did a presentation at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, noted here.
It was entitled Cambodia – Unfinished Stories, A ...
Read more... - BRLSI Presentation December 9, 2018
The presentation to the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Society is tomorrow evening, and I am putting the finishing touches to the materials.
I have created ...
Read more... - Beyond the Shadows – Judy Glickman Lauder December 4, 2018
Judy Glickman Lauder married Leonard Lauder, the cosmetics magnate, in 2015. But that is not why I am writing this post.
Glickman Lauder is a photographer, ...
Read more... - Sustainable Prospects Oral Presentation December 4, 2018
Robert Frank said, “Above all, life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference”.
Whilst I expressed the same thoughts in my first Oral Presentation, ...
Read more... - A Prayer from Hell – BRLSI talk December 4, 2018
I am giving a presentation next week to the Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institute, entitled ‘Unfinished Stories from Cambodia’.
The subtitle is ‘A Prayer from ...
Read more... - Week Nine Reflections – Reconciliation November 23, 2018
My main reflections at the moment are about reconciliation.
First, how to I reconcile my work in Cambodia as a photographer, with that of an educator? ...
Read more... - S-21 Data November 21, 2018
Youk Chhang, of DC-Cam (Documentation Center of Cambodia), provided me with data coming from research associated with the UN sponsored Tribunal.
In a 2017 email, he ...
Read more... - Unfinished Stories from Cambodia – A Prayer from Hell November 16, 2018
I have been asked to do a talk at the Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institute, on December 10th. I was approached to do this ...
Read more... - Khmer Rouge leaders found guilty of genocide in Cambodia’s ‘Nuremberg’ moment November 16, 2018
From the Guardian (November 16 2018):
Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea are the two most senior living leaders of regime that presided over deaths of at ...
Read more... - Week Six Reflections – Part Two November 5, 2018
I sometimes try to separate the photographic focus of the MA, and my personal role as a ‘Cambodian Educator’, of almost twenty years standing, as ...
Read more... - Week Six Reflections – Part One November 5, 2018
These are some thoughts on week two of my Cambodia trip.
As noted last week, the main purpose is to see how much progress I can make ...
Read more... - A Prayer from Hell November 5, 2018
In Phnom Penh last week, I met Youk Chhang for the first time. The visit including a lot of such networking activities, in order to ...
Read more... - Gatiloke, Genocide and the Narrative November 3, 2018
After an intense but (I believe) successful two weeks in Cambodia, there are many things I need to write about. There is however an overarching ...
Read more... - Mango Flowers and Fruits – Sarath October 16, 2018
The second fully-translated ‘story’ from Sarath.
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This is a story about the time just before being liberated from the Khmer Rouge (in 1979). The lives of ...
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