Introductory Note: The following description was written in the context of Yoko Toda’s 2008 installation. It reflects Cambodia’s historical and political transformation as viewed at that time.
Cambodia is one of the countries that has undergone the most dramatic transformations in the past 40 years. Once a highly advanced nation and the heart of the Khmer Empire, it was devastated by civil war and genocide in the 1970s, and subsequently occupied by Vietnam in the 1980s. In the early 1990s, the United Nations took authority to oversee its political transition and conflicts. Since then, Cambodia has been gradually moving toward modernization. Today, it is a parliamentary representative democracy with a rapidly growing economy.
Yoko Toda explores these contrasts through an installation that combines photographs taken in the mid-1960s with video footage of modern urban life in 2008. This three-part installation highlights the tension between tradition and modernity, silence and noise, stillness and movement.
