When he first arrived in Cambodia in the winter of 1973, Colin Grafton was immediately drawn to the warmth and energy of the people he met there. Born in London, England, in 1947, Grafton traveled to Asia in 1969 and worked as an English teacher in Laos for two years before moving to the only English-language school in Phnom Penh, where he worked from 1972 to 1975, fleeing the country 10 days before the Khmer Rouge invaded the capital city.
As a teacher, Grafton snapped photos during his spare time, capturing the vibrance and beauty of neighborhood children, traditional Khmer dancers and colleagues. When he returned four years later, he did the same—but this time within the confines of the refugee camps situated along the Thai-Cambodian border as a humanitarian volunteer, delivering food and medical supplies to hospitals. Grafton spent time in Mak Mun, Nong Samet, Nong Chan, Sakeo and five months in Khao I Dang, where over 130,000 people sought refuge away from the violence and destruction of the Cambodian genocide.
Though it was only a hobby, Grafton at the time was unknowingly creating a beautiful depiction of life in Cambodia before and after the Khmer Rouge.
Now, over 40 years since his work was first exhibited in London in 1981, he has brought it to Long Beach for the first time. Known as the sister city of Phnom Penh, Long Beach is home to the world’s largest concentration of the Cambodian diaspora.
As the featured artist at this past weekend’s Cambodia Town Parade and Festival, Grafton’s works were displayed in the Manazar Gamboa Theater at MacArthur Park. Attendees gathered around to observe the over 100 photographs displayed in the theater, and Cambodian elders showed the images to younger generation, scanning to see if they could find themselves in the faces of the children in the crowds. “I’m trying to look for myself,” said one attendee who was at Khao I Dang refugee camp during that time.
Now, the exhibit is open at the Museum of Latin American Art starting today through Sunday, April 9.
Grafton’s images from the five months he spent inside Khao I Dang spark memories of the “straight dirt roads and rows of huts as far as you could see,” he said. Captured in the photos, malnourished children are treated in Red Cross field hospitals, hundreds of thousands of people line up to receive food, little girls sell pendants made from IV drip tubes, crowds gather to watch comedy shows, and surviving dancers set up dance classes for children so they remember their origins.
Some people have been confused about why the subjects in his photos seem so happy, assuming that they’d be in bad shape as they had just seen their country destroyed by a brutal civil war, Grafton said. However, inside Khao I Dang, they were safe, and they had hope.
“They threw away their black clothes and put on colorful sarongs,” he said.
“Relatively, after three and a half years of the Khmer Rouge, they had a hard time getting out of Cambodia and risked their lives,” said Grafton. “When they got to the camp, it was like a paradise.”
His images, Grafton said, depict the lives of those who had “resigned to living on this little patch of land with not much sanitation and not much food, but just enough to survive and go from day to day to day.”
Grafton has now lived with his wife Keiko Kitamura in Phnom Penh since 2014, and together, the pair have worked on exhibitions and projects at the Bophana Center, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and Meta House. They also collaborated on the book “Dancers,” in 2022, a collection of stories and photographs he captured at a rare classical dance performance in 1973 and their quest to track down the same dancers over 40 years later.
Grafton’s exhibit will be available for viewing today through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Museum of Latin American Art, located at 628 Alamitos Ave.
On Friday, April 7, at 5:30 p.m., members of the Cambodian community will discuss the refugee camps and their immigrant experience alongside members of the Latino community during a panel discussion at the museum. A screening of Rithy Panh’s documentary, “Site 2,” filmed inside the Site 2 refugee camp in 1989, will also take place at noon on Saturday, April 8. Find more information here.