Washed

2015

 

These are drawings of domestic drain covers, juxtaposed against a background of floor tiles that I photographed while visiting Tuol Sleng, one of the memorial sites of the Cambodian Genocide. Tuol Sleng was the former high school in Phnom Penh that was converted into an interrogation and torture center by the Khmer Rouge during 1975-79. As a memorial and reminder of this atrocious history, the center’s floors have never been washed. What I’m left wondering is if the stains that cover these particular classroom floor tiles are more than the result of the daily wear and tear of high school life. By photographing sites of aggression and violence, I document the visual residue that remains long after the traumatic event. The insertion of the everyday, the domestic drain cover, brings it close to home.

 

 


 


media: digital print, ink, watercolor on paper

dimensions: 22” W x 30” H

Washed was first shown in a solo exhibition at Anna Kaplan Contemporary, Buffalo, NY.