Photoquai 2011 Residency

For his series Someone produced as part of the musée du quai Branly Photoquai Residency Program in 2011, Kim Hak created a study that could be described as archaeological, in the coastal province of Kep. Located in southern Cambodia, just a few hours’ drive from the capital, Phnom Penh, Kep was a popular resort town in the 60s. Vast, luxury modern properties were built here by Cambodian and French architects, forging the town’s reputation as the elite destination on the Cambodian Riviera. The town was almost entirely untouched during the Vietnam War and under the Khmer Rouge regime. Nature simply reclaimed its rights and the houses, like the Angkor temples, have been engulfed by tropical vegetation. “When I just look from outside of all 1960s style villas, I might consider, they are abandoned or became ghost villas. When I get into them deeper and deeper, I find out that SOMEONE lives and takes care of those houses. Someone has 'become one' with these strange ruins over the years. They are not empty but full of signs of the past mixed up with the present time."

Series produced in 2011.