88 from 14,000 deals with the remediation of genocidal images. It is a 56-minute video-projection based on mug-shot photographs of 88 out of 14,000 people killed at the S21 Prison during the Khmer Rouge regime. While researching the original archives in Cambodia, I found only 88 photographs for which the dates of incarceration and execution were recorded. I re-shot these on slide film in order to project each image on a screen of falling sand, as in an hourglass, with an amount of sand exactly correlated to the number of days each person lived in the prison before being executed. As the sand for the projection screen runs out, so does the image. Having the picture of each person appear and disappear reflects the time elapsed between entry into the prison and execution. Until it runs out, the falling sand remains an opportunity for the image to survive just one moment longer, allowing the possibility to imagine not just the deaths but also the lives of those who are gone — staging a temporal and visual restitution of their fading away.

The project’s research was developed in Phnom Penh in collaboration with the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Documentation Centre of Cambodia.