The exhibition at Photofusion comprises one hundred ID portraits loaned from The Photo Archive Group, a Los Angeles based non-profit organisation founded by photojournalists Chris Riley and Doug Niven who discovered, cleaned, catalogued and saved the negatives found at S-21, now known as The Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide.
These extraordinary and provocative images, seen for the first time in the UK, are currently being used as evidence in Cambodia's UN backed genocide tribunal where five of the Khmer Rouge's former high ranking leaders are being brought to justice. One of those in court about to face trial for crimes against humanity is Comrade 'Duch' (Kaing Gvek Eav), the 65-year-old former director of S-21. His trial comes 30 years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, 13 years after the tribunal was first proposed and nearly three years after the court was inaugurated. This year the first school textbook on the Khmer Rouge's genocidal regime was released to raise awareness among Cambodian children.