« THE GRAND OPENING OF PHNOM PENH » featured in Les Refusés #19

In April 1975, the Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh almost entirely of its inhabitants. Apartment buildings were abandoned and traffic was banned. Public spaces were transformed into farm land: to institute an egalitarian and rural society, Pol Pot’s regime of terror advocated domination of the “new people” by peasants and campaigns on a city regarded as decadent.