Photography: Émile Gsell, the eye on 19th-century Cambodia, returns to Bophana Center

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Twenty years after the centre opened, the photographs Émile Gsell took in the 1860s and 1870s are back on its walls. The free exhibition runs until 21 November as part of Photo Phnom Penh.

*The poster for the exhibition "Émile Gsell: Portraits of Cambodia in the 19th Century" at Bophana Center*

In December 2006, Bophana Center opened its doors with an exhibition of Émile Gsell's photographs. Twenty years later, the same images return to the ground floor of the centre in Phnom Penh.

The exhibition is part of Photo Phnom Penh, the capital's photography festival. It also marks the 20th anniversary of Bophana Center, a long-standing partner of the festival.

The pictures date from the 1860s and 1870s. More than 150 years on, they remain a key part of Cambodia's visual heritage. The centre invites visitors to look beyond the image: how these photographs have been preserved, how they are read today, and how they are passed down from one generation to the next.

A pioneer of Angkor photography

Émile Gsell, born in 1838, came to Cochinchina as a soldier. He joined the French army in 1858 and was posted to Saigon.

In 1866, Ernest Doudart de Lagrée recruited him as photographer for the Mekong Exploration Commission. The expedition reached Angkor on 24 June 1866 and stayed a week. Gsell took his first views of the temples there. Fifteen of them appear in the album Cochinchine et Cambodge, presented to Empress Eugénie in 1867.

By late 1866, Gsell had probably opened Saigon's first professional photography studio. He returned to Angkor in 1873 with Louis Delaporte's mission. He produced two albums, one on the ruins of Angkor, the other on the customs and types of the Annamite and Cambodian peoples. They earned him a medal at the Vienna World's Fair.

He died in Saigon on 16 October 1879, aged 41. His prints are now held in major collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which owns a rare copy of the 1867 album.

A centre built to give Cambodia back its archives

The Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center opened on 4 December 2006, at the initiative of filmmaker Rithy Panh. It is named after Bophana, a young woman held prisoner under the Khmer Rouge, whose letters and story became a symbol of courage and dignity. Its mission is to give the public free access to thousands of archival documents on Cambodia.

The Gsell exhibition is organised with Photo Phnom Penh and Université Côte d'Azur. It has financial support from France through the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the Henry Luce Foundation, the Rei Foundation Limited and Friends of Bophana through Myriad USA.