Dismantling The Moon

"When the viewer stands in front of this collage, what they see is not only photographs of torture victims, but also parts of themselves reflected in the mirrors."

These images are a combination of mirrors, photographs and projection. They encompass an entire space and invite the viewer to experience a moment of transience. Wall 1 has a projected image of myself with mirrors covering my eyes, nose and mouth. The reflection from the mirrors is seen on the opposing wall (2) and shows my eyes, nose and mouth.

These images discuss censorship, containment/suppression of information, imprisonment, and the role of the artist as voyeur, voyeurizing the viewer.

Wall 3 holds a grid pattern consisting of mirrors and photographs form the archives of the Cambodian Torture Museum—

Tuol Sheng. Projected onto this is a slide of palm trees and blue skies. When the viewer stands in front of this collage, what they see is not only photographs of torture victims, but also parts of themselves reflected in the mirrors. The opposite wall

(4) consists only of the palm trees and skies-representations of the often romanticized and exoticized images of the Third World that we make. The blank area between the palm trees discusses silently the reality of these countries— the hidden horror.

By interweaving images of Cambodia with images of ourselves (through the use of mirrors). I hope to create a visual dialogue about our perceptions with regard to place' and our relationship to it. The work is intoxicated with a mixture of memory, horror, sentiment and displacement. It is about the merging and juxtaposing of realities, creating a coalescence of time, space, people and location. 'Place' becomes borderless, and not too safely distanced.