Empowering Roots: Kim Hak's Alive IV Exhibition Connects Cambodian Heritage Across Generations in Japan and Cambodia

Last year, Rei Foundation was proud to support two exhibitions of Alive IV by acclaimed Cambodian artist Kim Hak, held in Yokohama and Phnom Penh. Alive IV is the latest chapter in his ongoing Alive series.

Hak was born in northeastern Cambodia, two years after the Khmer Rouge fell from power. After spending years listening to his parents’ experiences of that turbulent time, Hak began his photographic art project Alive in 2014, collecting and preserving stories of survivors of the Khmer Rouge period through both text and striking photographs. Alive appealed to Rei Foundation because of its powerful community-building potential as well as Hak’s singular talent.

Following the success of Alive IV, in Tokyo and Yokohama in 2022, it was held once again in 2023 in Yokohama and Phnom Penh, this time curated by independent Cambodian curator Meta Moeng. The exhibition in Yokohama was initiated by a new voluntary organisation, also named Alive, that was formed to address community issues facing those with Cambodian roots in Japan after its members were inspired by the 2022 exhibitions of Hak’s work. Alive has been established with the vision of “a future where young Cambodians living in Japan can be proud of their roots and develop their identity to the fullest.”

According to Hak, “Alive IV was structured around the stories of 12 Cambodian families, including international students who were unable to return to their country due to the turmoil within Cambodia in the 1970s, and refugees who came to Japan in the 1980s.”

From 1978, Japan began accepting refugees from Southeast Asia, including around 1,300 Cambodians. Alive IV features 40 images and texts about items that some of those refugees were able to keep with them when they fled from Cambodia and travelled through refugee camps to Japan. From a pile of unused cassettes to a long, shining scar on one participant’s forearm, Alive IV reveals a poignant and deeply human reflection on the conflict and its lingering effects.

A public programme of lectures and interactive viewings ran alongside the exhibition, encouraging discussion and helping visitors connect the works and community experiences.

The sessions were varied and included one that looked at the 1.5 generation - those who immigrated either before or during early adolescence - and their ageing parents. Video interviews and survey data revealed the barriers facing those wishing to spend the rest of their lives in Japan, including living costs, medical care and other challenges and explored how dialogue might improve the situation.

Another session explored intergenerational cultural transmission, how cultural knowledge, values and practices pass from one generation to the next, including discussions between the first and 1.5 generations and interviews with those who fled Cambodia as teenagers. The session also included a visit from a Khmer classical dance instructor based in France.

The project also speaks to a broader need among Cambodian communities in Japan: to engage with histories that include not only suffering and displacement, but also resilience, creativity and the courage to hope and dream.. As the Alive project develops, Rei Foundation has been pleased to see community members begin to lead their own projects to respond to the needs, histories and strengths of their own communities.