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Festival Photo Phnom Penh 2024
Christine Spengler, Rétrospective
SOSORO Museum - November 21 to December 21
She defines herself as a "War Correspondent, Visual Artist & Writer". The two aspects of her visual practice, which also correspond to two moments of her life, are however linked by several points that can be found in photographs whose aesthetics have nothing to do with each other.
For fifteen years, she has, in black and white, been the woman who has borne witness, throughout the world, to the greatest number of armed conflicts. Her photographs with precise framing and always at the right and respectful distance have been published in the most prestigious press media on the planet. They are the memories of a torn, painful, fractured world. But, unlike many of her colleagues, the one who distinguished herself in Vietnam and Cambodia when she was very young at the same moment of two other French women, Françoise de Mulder and Catherine Leroy, was always more concerned by the situation of civilians in war situations than in the fighting itself. And she always considered women’s situation and position. Her way of telling life in a context of death. As a photojournalist, she was, through her aesthetic demands, also a concerned artist.
Deeply and lastingly marked by the suicide she learned of in 1973 in Saigon of her younger brother Eric, she decided, ten years later, to exorcise this personal tragedy by creating images that would “bring the missing back to life”. She remembers her visits to the Prado Museum in Madrid when she builds colorful compositions, combining black and white portraits of those who were dear to her and objects, flowers, pearls, plants, shimmering fabrics. In this collection that takes her from her family members to Spanish virgins and bullfighters, from the famous singer Maria Callas to the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, the French writer Marguerite Duras occupies a special place. She is, as she says, her idol.
On February 11th, 1974, Christine Spengler photographed the first bombing of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge. She gave a dark vision of the
end of the world and the image was published around the world. Fifty years later, this photograph comes back to Cambodia as a testimony of
memory and a tribute to a great artist.
Inauguration weekend from November 21 to November 24 in Phnom Penh
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This year, Photo Phnom Penh is proud to present:
- At the French Institute (until January 15, 2025): a retrospective of 60 photographers who took part in the Festival Photo Phnom Penh throughout its history, with works never before seen in Cambodia (Gallery); Ourng Sam Ang with "The Beloved Kampong Som" (Media Library);
- On the wall of the French embassy: (until February 28, 2025): Vincent Fournier;
- At the SOSORO Museum (until December 21, 2024): Christine Spengler with "Retrospective";
- at Factory Phnom Penh : Jean-François Spricigo with "Retrouvailles", Aglaé Bory with "Two Series" & Alexandre Bergamini (until December 12 at the FT Gallery) ; 7 students of the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d'Arles, France (until December 21 at the Air Gallery by Sra'Art);
- At La Plantation Urban Resort & Spa (until December 21, 2024): Chiron Duong;
- At Bophana Center (until December 21, 2024): Ly Sovanna with "Ranoch Visited Angkor";
- At Friends Future Factory (until December 21, 2024) : Mech Sereyrath with "When the Sun Reaches The River";
- At Phnom Penh Airports (until February 21, 2025): Kem Sovanna with "Landscape Sculpted by Light";
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At Studio Images - Maison de la Photographie: Soun
Sayon
with "Decay" (From November 22 to December 10); Mabe Bethônico with "One Traveller After
Another" from December 10 to January 10).