Right and Left: Bas-relief carving on Ta Prohm temple, Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Center: Two soldiers guarding the Bayon Temple in Angkor Wat temple complex. At the time of this photo, many landmines still existed in the area
Left Image: Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, Teacher, performer and then recent graduate of the RUFA. Phnom Penh. 1991. She is currently a choreographer, living in Phnom Penh and presenting work internationally. Right Image: Master teacher,Soth Somon, at the Royal Palace holding part of an aspara’s headdress, Phnom Penh 1991. Classical dance is considered one of the touchstones of Khmer culture.
Left Image: Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, Teacher, performer and then recent graduate of the RUFA. Phnom Penh. 1991. She is currently a choreographer, living in Phnom Penh and presenting work internationally. Here she is transforming into an apsara. Right: Dancers prepare for a performance in the burned out theater in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Left:Practice at the Royal University of Fine Arts, Phnom Penh. All of the teachers were once students. Starting at a very early age the girls are hand picked to be apseras and then go through many years of training and education. Right: Sam Peah Kru Ceremony thanking their teachers and the spirit of the dance.
Left:Two boys practising the Monkey dance which is performed as part of the Ramayana. The two boys are advanced students at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Right: Two boys practicing the Monkey dance which is performed in the Ramayana.
Princ, a theater professor at Royal University of Fine Arts. 1991. Though Princ had managed to physically survive the Khmer Rouge's purge of artists he was still emotionally haunted by his experience. He was separated by his family, forced to remarry and then use his acting skills to entertain the cadres. He had to submerge his identity to survive.
Left: This girl aspires to be one of Cambodia's star apsaras. The imagery depicted in her uncle's work is the source for much of this art form. Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Right: Classical Khmer Dance is throughly infused in Khmer culture. Though professional dancers are trained at an elite state sponsored program many children learn the skills in public school. These dances directly descend from the golden age of Khmer history represented in the iconography at Angkor.
Cambodian Garment Workers. A worker outside of Pak Shun factory. Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Cambodia’s garment industry is the country’s main industry and its leading export revenue earner. In 2006, exports totaled US$2.5 billion and the sector employed 330,000 mostly poorer rural women, who in turn supported extended families. In total, an estimated 1.7 million people depend on the garment industry directly or indirectly.
Chhin, 22 years old, garment factory worker, 2003
Chhin, a garment worker in Phnom Penh, shares her room with three young women. The apartment has one room and one large bed. Chhin's rent is $15 a month. A normal day at the factory is 14 hours from which she makes $2.70.
At a Taiwan owned factory in Phnom Penh. Shirts are made here for leading American brands like John Henry. The garment sector employs around 330,000 people, brings in 1.3 billion dollars and supplies the US market with reasonably priced clothes to among others; Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Columbia. Though this industry has had some negative effects the money it brings into the country is vital.
Garment workers returning home after a shift. A little girl begs for money at the gate to the main road. Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Outside the garment factories are many small shops and business and stalls. Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Chun Voeun, 65 years old. Battambang. His tattoos are connected to an ancient tradition of protective tattoos that are often produced in temples by monks. Many men who fought in war or who have dangerous jobs like mine removal get tattoos to protect themselves from bombs, disease and bullets.
Left: Remnants of Cambodia's recent wars are found by a road building team. Right: An amputee soldier at Wat Phnom, Cambodia. He is now among Cambodia's estimated 40,000 chon pika - or amputees. With a population of around 11.5 million, Cambodia has one amputee for every 290 people - one of the highest ratios in the world.
A young boy sits on an airplane thats been transformed into a playground attraction. These are leftovers from the pre Khmer Rouge military purchases during the Vietnam war.
Youk Chang, head of the War Crimes Documentation Center. A leading investigator into the Khmer Rouge's genocide. The Documentation Center has been collecting materials to gather evidence for Cambodia's genocide trials.
Though this elephant is not a wild animal, the elephant in Cambodia is a national and sacred symbol and given this striking juxtaposition I thought it talked to the environmental issues that Cambodia faces. Many less developed countries face the choice of slower sustainable development or cashing in on their natural resource with little concern for the environment. In particular Cambodia's is losing much of its rain forest to rampant logging.
Family displaced by the creation of a rubber plantation. In order to create the plantation a 30 square mile patch of prime rain forest was destroyed. International monitors suspect that the timber profits were the prime objective of the project. By labeling the project “community” development the company tried to avoid a logging moratorium. The director of the provincial forestry department who recommended the project described its effect as “enhancing peoples living conditions and …protecting the environment.”
Two boys eating corn steamed in the burning remains of the forest. Tumring Commune, Kompong Thom Province. 2003
Family displaced by creation of rubber plantation. In order to create the plantation a 30 mile patch of prime rain forest was destroyed. International monitors suspect that the timber profits were the prime objective of the project. By labeling the project “community” development the company tried to avoid a logging moratorium. The director of the provincial forestry department who recommended the project described its effect as “enhancing peoples living conditions and …protecting the environment.”
Left: Workers in Phnom Penh off loading wood during a moritorium on logging. Right: A boy and his father haul poles harvested from the community forest. Siem Reap, 2002. The taxes collected from harvesting these wood poles are used for improving local services, like schools.
Steng Meanchay Land Fill, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Woman leaving the landfill. Phnom Penh, 2003. The predicament of these internally displaced people is one example of landlessness and lack of land rights in Cambodia. Land titling has been inconsistent and prone to corruption. The judges, who make less than a living wage, depend on bribes to supplement their income. This tends to assure that justice in land rights challenges often goes to the highest bidder.
Father and son at landfill. Phnom Penh, 2003. This new community of squatters has set up right on the edge of one of the huge mounds. The lack of jobs or land suitable for farming has forced these people from the provinces to migrate to the cities. To the dismay of city planners, who want to move the landfill out of town, it has drawn a constant wave of migrants.
Schoolboy scavenging at the landfill. 2003. The landfill has moved around this marshy district. The area where the school is located used to be right on the edge of the landfill but now those families are more firmly established with brick shanties and electricity.
Children waiting for inoculation. Steng Meanchay Land Fill, Phnom Penh, 2003. As a part of the inoculation program they receive a meal after the injection. Some kids brought spoons for the meal.
Farmers going to a Sam Rainsy rally. Battambang, 2003. Rainsy was the main opposition candidate during these presidential elections. He as been sidelined by the ruling CPP by being accused of corruption, defamation and other politically motivated accusations.
Left: 2003 Cambodia National Elections
Sam Rainsey party motorcade, Phnom Penh, 2003 Cambodia National Elections. Right: Sam Rainsy campaign worker outside of Phnom Penh.
2003 Cambodia National Elections. Concerned young girl at rally, Battambang, Cambodia.
Cambodian National Elections 2003
The oppistion candidate, Sam Rainsey in Battambang during the 2003 Cambodian National Elections.
Left: People look for their names at their local poll station. Phnom Penh. 2003 Cambodia National Elections. Right: Outside of Provincial Election Center. Phnom Penh. Representatives for each party counted, with the official counters, and called in the results to their respective party headquarters.
The international press waiting for a candidate to vote. Phnom Penh,2003. There were few political killings and only sporadic cases of reported voter fraud or intimidation. The international community was generally satisfied. In the end the ruling party won and will continue to rule the country.
