Today I didn't expect to visit the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, but yesterday I grabbed the May 11, 2010 issue of the Cambodia Daily at the head quoter of the company and on the page 26th an article made me quite upset. Not really the article which was written by Phorn Bopha and Andrew Burmon but the London based graffiti artist Fabrizio Cammisecra. In a nutshell Mr. Cammisecra posted several photographs on the Internet, showing himself spray -painting the walls of the Tuol Sleng Genocide Musem (S-21) , former Pol Pot secret prison with images of young boys and men executed by Khmer Rouge. By The Cambodia Daily journalists. The angry reactions may have caused the guerrilla artist to retreat. Mr. Cammisecra shouted down not only his personnel website but also his Facebook page.
Today when I had a personnel discussion with Mr. Keh Sobanaka Museum director he said they crabbed the pictures from the walls. What happened is Crime not Art. People must respect this place instead of outs themselves where almost 20.000 people were tortured and just a view of them survived. The museum sometimes provide place for artists, but not for vandals.
On the way to check the scrubbed pictures, suddenly I saw Mr. Chum Mey one of the survivor of S-21. He invited me to show the cell where was chained for many years. They are only three living survivors of the notorious Tuol Sleng (Pol Pot secret prison). Bou Meng, Vann Nath and Chum Mey.
Why only scrub off the graffiti that got the bad publicity? What about the rest on that wall?
ReplyDeleteIf the journalists don't pick up the story, no one care about it.The paint cost couple of bucks to cover the whole area so they just scrubbed. Probably too much work to scrub 2 square meters and no one want to do it. Volunteers are welcome. This is Cambodia.
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