Cambodia is a country in South East Asia neighbouring Vietnam, Thailand and Laos. It was once the centre of the ancient kingdom of the Khmers and its capital was Angkor. The present day capital is Phnom Penh. In 1953 Cambodia gained independence from almost 100 years of French colonial rule. In the 1960s the population of about 7 million, almost all Buddhists, was under the rule of a monarch, Prince Sihanouk.

The Khmer Rouge were a group of communist rebels that launched a civil war across Cambodia in the late 1960s. This coincided with the American air force’s carpet-bombing campaign on Cambodia during the American war in Vietnam (although Cambodia was a neutral country). The resulting civilian casualties were a catalyst for an enraged population to support the Khmer Rouge who until then had received little popular support.

On April 17th 1975 the Khmer Rouge captured Cambodia’s capital and what followed was a four-year reign of genocide on their own people as they returned the country to Year Zero. They abolished religion, schools and currency in a bid to create agrarian utopia. This reign of terror came to an end in 1979 when the Vietnamese Army invaded Phnom Penh. It is estimated that some 2 million Cambodians, a quarter of the population, died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge who were led by Brother Number 1, the infamous Pol Pot.

During this murderous period a secret torture and interrogation prison, codenamed S-21, was operating from a former school, Tuol Sleng, in the south of the capital. The focus of S-21 was on Khmer Rouge cadres thought not to be sufficiently dedicated to the cause. Prisoners were tortured until they confessed to whatever crimes their captors charged them with, photographed and then executed. The prisoners' photographs and confessions formed dossiers that were submitted to Khmer Rouge authorities as ‘proof’ that the ‘traitors’ had been eliminated. Of the 14,200 known people who were imprisoned at S-21, less than 20 are believed to have survived.

The exhibition at Photofusion comprises one hundred ID portraits loaned from The Photo Archive Group, a Los Angeles based non-profit organisation founded by photojournalists Chris Riley and Doug Niven who discovered, cleaned, catalogued and saved the negatives found at S-21, now known as The Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide.

Film Screenings
Thursday 21 May, 19.15
£5 (Free for Photofusion Annual Members & Autograph Subscribers)

‘Legacy of a Cambodian Prison’ (30 min)
Chris Riley and Doug Niven from The Photo Archive Group piece together the details of the genocide that took place at S-21 through thousands of photos, interviews with former prison guards and prisoners.
‘The Conscience of Nhem En’ (30 min)
Directed by Steven Okazaki
This film explores conscience and complicity in the story of a Nhem En, a young soldier responsible for taking the ID photos of thousands of innocent people before they were tortured and killed at the S-21 prison.
Venue: Photofusion Gallery

Screening and Q&A with John Pilger
Saturday 30 May, 15.00
Please note: Entry for this event is £5, not £10/£8 as previously advertised.
Award-winning war correspondent, film-maker and author John Pilger will introduce his documentary ‘Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia’, followed by Q&A.
Venue: Photofusion Studio 404 (12 Market Row – entrance to Brixton Market on Coldharbour Lane. No wheelchair access)

Exhibition Talk with Julian Stallabrass
Thursday 11 June, 19.15 (£5 / £3.50 Photofusion annual members & Autograph subscribers)
Writer and curator of ‘Memory of Fire: Images of War and the War of Images’ and 2008 Brighton Photo Biennial, will talk about the exhibition in the context of the history and range of types of war photography, from early records of executions and torture through to contemporary photographic trophy taking.
Venue: Photofusion gallery

Inspired by the work of the photographer Nhem En, who photographed the inmates of Tuol Sleng prison in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, S-27 was the inaugural winner of Amnesty International’s Protect The Human Playwriting Competition.

Book online
24 Hour Box Office 0844 847 1652 – no booking fee

The Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED
(nearest Tube Earls Court)