Weisman exhibit travels across pain and time.

I have just traveled through pain and time. Last weekend, I attended the opening of "Facing Death: Portraits from Cambodia's Killing Fields" at the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota. In an intimate gallery hang 100 photographs of Cambodian men, women and children who eventually were executed in the Tuol Sleng prison on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.
They were just a small fraction of the 14,700 political prisoners who met their deaths at this site, and of the 1.6 million Cambodians killed from 1975 to '79 in what we now refer to as Pol Pot's "Killing Field."
Members of the Weisman staff at first declined to sponsor this exhibition. But the images and the idea behind the display gnawed at them. After passionate discussions, they reconsidered. Despite the difficulty of presenting these portraits of doomed human beings, the Weisman staff decided to take on the exhibition because of the compelling need and opportunity to connect with the local Cambodian community and to educate non-Cambodians about the history of this genocide.
"Facing Death" is a revolutionary exhibit. The museum is no longer a walled in space to show art, to teach art history and to experiment in drawing. It provides a visual artistic framework in which to consider tough issues that face contemporary society. In the words of the educational director, Colleen Sheehy, the museum is "a place to come together in a safe space to consider challenges in the community."
The Weisman decision was well received. On Saturday, Feb. 10, over 300 Cambodians attended, as did hundreds of local friends and colleagues. The Cambodian hosts brought food, music, a shaman, Buddhist monks, readings and memoirs, songs and dances. These activities of revitalization made the horrible pictures of suffering seem to be less final,, less a plunge into oblivion, less a final judgment against a whole civilization.
Looking at the pictures is a painful experience. In some ways it is worse than looking at the photographs of nearly unconscious survivors of Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen.
The Cambodians were kept alive so they could confess. They were aware of their impending doom. The photographs are not mug shots; many include the whole body. In some a mother is with her child, in others a young boy is held up by a guard's strong grip, in some the person is grim, despondent or even showing a touch of insolence or anger. There are women who look absolutely beautiful.
For many Minnesotans and Americans, this is probably the first chance to see Cambodian people up close and in detail. The individuality is striking.
The eerie aspect of the photographs is that their meaning changed between the time they were taken and the time they were exhibited. Originally, they were meant to document the death of these "traitors" to the revolution. The photographs were sent to Pol Pot to prove that his enemies had been eliminated. Now the photographs document Pol Pot's atrocities.
As I walked through this wonderful museum, I asked: Is this experience of pain and suffering… art? I found my answer in the audience. The ability of this exhibition to attract people, both Cambodians and non-Cambodians, to witness, observe and collectively discuss the past through individual portraits makes the experience artistic. The exhibit uses pictures to remind us of the scale of human fulfillment and human destruction. Through our collective witness, we link ourselves over time and through our collective witness, we link ourselves over time and through pain to the need to rekindle and preserve our own lives, and the lives of others.

These images are among those of Cambodian men, women and children who later were executed at a prison outside of Phnom Penh. They were among 14,700 political prisoners who met their deaths at this site, and of the 1.6 million Cambodians killed from 1975 to 1979.

Minneapolis Star Tribune, 2/18/01.