ALIVE : Memory in motion, 50 years after the fall of Phnom Penh

Fifty years after the fall of Phnom Penh, memory is breathing again at the Bophana Center. Within these walls dedicated to images, the voice of the past rises once more through ALIVE, the new exhibition by Cambodian photographer and artist Kim Hak. A powerful, silent, and luminous work born from the desire to face the shadows of history without ever ceasing to seek life in them.

Under the artistic direction of filmmaker Rithy Panh, a major figure in the cinema of memory, and curator Moeng Meta, ALIVE unfolds like a meditation on survival, lineage, and transmission. It invites visitors to wander through a space where every object becomes a witness— a spark of light in the darkness of oblivion. "Every brick, every wall of the Bophana Center rises against amnesia," says Rithy Panh, co-founder of the place and artistic director of the exhibition. "By dedicating these spaces to ALIVE, we remind that remembering is not only resisting: it is founding democracy on regained dignity."

From the ground floor to the upper level, passing through the library on the first floor, the works of Kim Hak engage in a subtle dialogue between past and present. This expansion reflects the growing role of the Bophana Center as a living sanctuary of memory and a catalyst for contemporary creations.

Produced in partnership with the Rei Foundation Limited, the exhibition brings together a decade of patient work: photographs of modest objects—pots, clothing, intimate heirlooms, rescued images—that Cambodian families preserved during the years of terror. These fragments of daily life, transformed into "vessels of memory," tell the persistence of life at the heart of disaster.

Gathered today in Phnom Penh, they reconstruct, piece by piece, a sensitive map of scattered Cambodia. ALIVE transcends mourning: it transforms memory into living matter, into a dialogue between generations, into a universal visual language where pain, tenderness, and hope converge.

In the contemplative silence of its rooms, ALIVE teaches us that memory does not belong to the past: it is the invisible breath that keeps peoples standing, souls awake, and gazes open. Through art, Kim Hak offers Cambodia—and the world—an act of resilience: a way to say that living, despite everything, is remembering.

ALIVE opened its doors this Saturday at the Bophana Center in Phnom Penh and will be held until November 15. It is open Monday through Saturday, from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Admission is free, offering everyone the opportunity to dive into this living, essential, and shared memory.