| War Photographer Documents Cambodia Peace July 22, 2004 Tim Page immortalised some of the most potent images of the Vietnam and Cambodian wars. The most celebrated photographer to survive the conflict, he has inspired books, documentaries and even a character in the classic film. Tim Page recently returned to Cambodia but this time he is documenting a mission of peace, a project to turn decommissioned weapons into art. “I died in Vietnam, I was blown up by a landmine in 1969 and lost 200cc of my brain and was paralysed,” Tim said. “You're reminded of your own fragility, you're reminded of your own pains, your own traumas, that stuff which I think only people who actually have been in war really understand, the insanity, the madness.” Tim Page is the legendary photographer who rode to war on his motorbike. A maverick, often on the front line, his potent images of the Cambodian and Vietnam conflicts influenced the course of history. Thirty-five years later, he is back in Cambodia to record the aftermath of decades of fighting, and the disturbing images of peace are almost as confronting as the horror of war. “Every place you go in Cambodia, you see people with no legs, no arms, in the end you stop going, oh, there's a picture,” Tim said. “To go back and still see that there's more victims produced every day by these heinous mines and unexploded ordnance, I find myself completely drained, I find myself in tears.” An estimated 6 million landmines still litter the countryside. On average, 30 people are injured or killed every week by mines in Cambodia. “Anti-personnel mine is the most effective weapon on the planet because it denies land,” Tim said. “They're a terror weapon.” “The Cambodians unfortunately used landmines like you and I would close a gate to a paddock to stop things getting out.” Now, Tim is documenting a small project that seeks to highlight the nation's plight to the outside world. The Peace of Art program teaches students from the Royal University of Fine Art in Phnom Penh how to turn decommissioned weapons into works of art. And there is no shortage of material. “The front end of the project is very important because you've got this recovery of weapons in a country, I suspect, there was probably at least a weapon for every man, woman and child in that country by the end of the conflict,” Tim said. At the moment they have 866 AK-47s and hope to get more in the future. A blacksmith and sculptor have been teaching the students how to weld the weapons together. “If you're a bit of an archaeologist with weaponry, you kind of start to say, there's a bit of mortar and there's a bit of a base plate of a machine gun or something,” Tim said. The students' inspiration comes from the beauty of nature and their surroundings. “I took the metal from AK-47s and they were ideal to shape into sections that looked like the shell and legs of a crab,” said one man working on the project. Two Griffith University photojournalism students have been helping photograph the work. These photographs will form an exhibition that will be on show in Australia later this year. “I hope my photos can bring to the project awareness that people know what's going on, and help promote Cambodian artists,” photojournalism student Adam Ferguson said. Several of the sculptures have already been sold and the money will fund training for a new group of students. The project could be a model for similar work in Bosnia, Somalia and Afghanistan. “In the Solomons, I was there for a week and we chopped up 3,500 weapons,”Tim said. Tim has spent much of his life documenting war and he hopes his latest work recording images of peace will speak just as loudly. “By going back to Vietnam, by going back to Laos, by going back to Cambodia, I can affect a little bit of change,” he said. “It's not boom-boom, it's not sexy, it's not shoot 'em ups, it's not rock 'n roll, it's peace, and it's so hard to sell peace.” The exhibition opens in Brisbane in September, with organisers hoping to take the show to other capital cities later in the year. Copyright 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All Rights Reserved. |
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