Wednesday, January 09, 2008

S-21 Paintings

A self portrait of Vann Nath during his S-21 incarceration
One of the mass detention cells in which more than 50 prisoners were shackled together
Khmer Rouge guards carrying one of the prisoners after interrogation
Mothers and children were separated on arrival
An example of one of the torture methods employed by the S-21 interrogators
These are 5 of the paintings that hang in Block D by the artist Vann Nath, who experienced Tuol Sleng/S-21 for a year before the Vietnamese expelled the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh in January 1979. He was asked to return by the prison authorities to document his experiences of what took place at the prison, and these paintings, completed at the end of 1979, have remained on display at the museum ever since, and for which Vann Nath has become internationally renown. The paintings have now been put into glass-frames, hence the reflections you can see on some of the photos.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don know all are 100% true or not. I know and belive that KR are brutal although I was born one year after the regime ended. The point is now is not to ask whether the brutality is true or not but why the Khmer, who is gentle by nature, became such brutal.