photograph
Heng Sinith by Erin Gleeson :
Poverty sells. Photojournalists, especially those working in impoverished Cambodia, are oftentimes assigned to record people as a representation of poverty. This tends to encourage pity and overlook change. Sinith wanted to depart from typical representations of the poor. How? By taking the people out of the frame altogether. Returning to his childhood province, he has recorded objects belonging to some of Cambodia’s poorest rural residents. These are common possessions for any economic level: containers, cookware, offerings, food. Although we recognize Sinith’s chosen objects as “poor”, these still-life photograph’s composition and perspective creates monumentality and instils beauty in otherwise overlooked objects.
