Lost and found: textile materialities in conflict Cambodia (1970-80s)

Lecture Magali An Berthon, CTR and American University in Paris.

Abstract

This presentation summarises two and half year of research as part of TEX-KR, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action – European Union Project project. TEX-KR investigates textiles and dress as cultural practices, heritage and production in Cambodia from the early 1970s to the early 1980s, especially examining the years of the Khmer Rouge regime. This project centred around two Cambodian institutions: the National Museum of Cambodia and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. In the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge regime, three-quarters of the textiles from the National Museum of Cambodia’s collection, all of them acquired in the first half of the twentieth century, were missing and most likely looted. On the other hand, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum was established on the secret Khmer Rouge prison and torture centre S-21, in which about 18,000 prisoners died. Approximately three thousand garments and textile fragments belonging to the victims were found after the regime’s collapse and were recently reintegrated into the museum’s archive. The paper will explore how these two textile and clothing collections – one lost, one found – are by-products of the Khmer Rouge atrocities and inform the cultural, social and artistic damages of this traumatic period for Cambodia and Cambodian people.

CTR meetings and lectures Autumn 2024

Every other Wednesday at CTR, we have administrative meetings running through the semester, followed by a scientific presentation, either by a CTR member or an invited scholar. We kindly invite everyone interested to join these lectures.

Lecture, ca. 14:00-14:45

The weekly lecture will start at 14:00 and will be followed by a free discussion amongst all participants. Please see the program below. You are more than welcome to join us in person at CTR, University of Copenhagen South Campus, room 11B-1-05.

If dates are still open for lectures in the calendar, you are more than welcome to write to us with suggestions for speakers.

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Meeting 15:00-16:00

The second hour, 15:00-16:00, is mainly reserved for CTR members, yet if anyone would like to join, they are welcome. The meeting consists of general administrative and CTR-related news and information as well as “News around the table”, where everyone gives a short update on their projects. Anyone participating in the meeting is expected to join this, also if you are not a member of CTR.