Film Recommendation/Research: The Conscience of Nhem En (2008)

THE CONSCIENCE OF NHEM EN explores conscience and complicity in the story of a young soldier responsible for taking ID photos of thousands of innocent people before they were tortured and killed by the Khmer Rouge at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison in Cambodia.

These photographs highly inspired my practice, after seeing them for the first time when I was 17. I heard about VICE colorizing and retouching these photographs, and it angered me to my core. I had rage about the photographs themselves, and the man who manipulated them years later.

This phenomenon of genocide/war photography plagues my mind—though I do not find it difficult to understand the position Nhem En was in. Many young men during this time period suffered from forced situations, like the “eat or be eaten” mentality. He was forced to make the pictures to survive. I’m not sure what I would have done in his shoes.