Capturing everyday life in the chaos of post-1979 Cambodia

In one of John Burgess’s photos, of a row of homes in the centre of Battambang, what grabs the attention is what is not in the frame. On the streets there is nothing but the shadows cast by coconut trees and rusted utility poles.

This image from the country’s desolate provincial capital in 1980 will be on display at Meta House beginning on Tuesday, in the photojournalist’s first exhibition – a collection of photographs taken during a visit as one of the first foreign journalists to enter the country after the fall of the Khmer Rouge.

Having spent 1979 in neighbouring Thailand freelancing and documenting the refugee crisis in Cambodia, Burgess was no stranger to the country, nor its tumultuous history, when he entered Cambodia on a reporting visa granted by the new Vietnam-backed government led by Heng Samrin. At that time, many refugees who had fled to neighbouring countries, along with the survivors of forced labor collectives, were moving back to their home provinces.

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