Hidden

Fox, Charles ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2939-1087 and Sisapantha, Prum (2025) Hidden. [Show/Exhibition]

Abstract

The output is a collaborative exhibition by Fox and Prum consisting of a concertina book and a series of landscape photographs. Research Process: This research is the result of an ongoing long-term dialogue between Fox and Prum. It is an embodiment of Prum’s personal journey from Phnom Penh to Battambang during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia (1975–1979) - a period of violence, loss, and forced relocation. During this period, Pantha hid over 90 of her family’s photographic negatives in a fabric pocket she removed from a dress and concealed around her waist as she was forcibly moved from place to place. Central to the exhibition is a book, the cover of which is crafted from the same material that once held Prum’s hidden photographs. The pages of the book unfold to mimic a GPS trace of a reenactment undertaken by Fox and Prum of Prum’s journey. During this expedition, Prum wrote of her memories of the Khmer Rouge (featured in the book’s text alongside) and Fox took photographs documenting her recollections (featured in the large format prints). Research Insights: The research presents a deeply personal yet universally resonant exploration of memory, loss, and survival. The research highlights the absence of photography through this period of shifting political complications and the importance of retroactive documentation. Insights into the ways in which history is preserved, concealed, and rediscovered are articulated through the exhibition. This research also shows how exhibition making can work as a prompt for conversation as method, and as a site of representation of oral histories and first-person experiences of historical events. Dissemination: Exhibited at Ankhor Photo Festival, Seim Reap, Cambodia, 8-23 February 2025. Exhibited at The Art House, Wakefield, UK, 28 June – 11 October 2025.

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