Hidden – Charles Fox in conversation with Mark Rawlinson
What does it mean to build a photobook around what cannot—or should not—be seen? This interview with Charles Fox, conducted in relation to the ongoing collaboration with Prum Sisapantha titled Hidden, circles persistently around the conceptual and ethical implications of concealment. In a time when photography is saturated with expectation—of visibility, of revelation, of evidentiary power—Hidden resists these demands. Instead, it draws attention to absence, to loss, to survival strategies in contexts of trauma. At its core is a refusal: not to withhold gratuitously, but to hold space for the complexity of memory, history, and collaboration.
Throughout the conversation, themes of the hidden recur in multiple forms: the literal concealment of negatives during the Khmer Rouge regime; the layered processes of translation across languages, media, and generations; and the shifting positionality of the photographer as both insider and outsider. What emerges is not a single definition of hiddenness but a network of tensions—between visibility and vulnerability, between documentation and dialogue, between the politics of looking and the ethics of listening.
What does it mean to build a photobook around what cannot—or should not—be seen? … In a time when photography is saturated with expectation—of visibility, of revelation, of evidentiary power—Hidden resists these demands.
Framed as both an artwork and an act of collaboration, Hidden confronts the assumption that photography must always show. It instead proposes that the photographic act can involve restraint, that what is left out may speak more urgently than what is revealed. This interview invites readers to consider the photobook not as a vessel of images, but as a discursive space—an object of uncertain form, shaped by the lived experiences of those it represents and those it implicates. It asks: what does it mean to see responsibly? And what might it mean to refuse to see, or to make seeing conditional, negotiated, incomplete? These are not questions to be solved but to be sat with—discomfited by, moved by, and compelled to return to.
The following conversation between Rawlinson and Fox is in part a continuation of a discussion at an event in Sheffield’s Millennium Museum on 21 January 2025 where Hidden was discussed publicly for the first time, and also part of a wider ongoing dialog surrounding photography, photobooks and research.
***
Mark Rawlinson: It is an obvious point from which to begin but what is hidden in Hidden?
Charles Fox: Hidden is a result of an ongoing dialog with Prum Sisaphantha and her family photographs which she carried during the Khmer Rouge regime in a small fabric bag formed from a dress she owned as a young woman. I had previously published Buried in collaboration with Vira Rama which detailed this act of burying photographs during the Khmer Rouge. Hidden in part is a continuation of the discussion of how family photography shifted during the regime. Sisaphantha’s family photographs continued to travel with her through Cambodia and through our discussions we decided to recreate the journey she made. During this trip Sisaphantha wrote of her experiences and I made photographs.
Hidden resides in a complex dialog with the history of photography, Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge, so much so that I needed the framework of an MA in Genocide and Holocaust studies to write about the mechanics of it all. One of the major parts of this research was understanding how significant time periods of the French Protectorate, independence and the Khmer Rouge interplayed photographically. This research shaped the current form of Hidden as a book which tracks the journey of an individual and a set of photographs the meaning of which shifted dramatically under the Khmer Rouge. The photographs made in photography studios in Cambodia’s capitol city Phnom Penh were an indication of Sisaphantha’s status as a urban resident. In the eyes of the regime the urban classes were separate to the rural population. The Khmer Rouge’s aim was to to turn the country to an agrarian society under radical ideologies. However this resulted in the death of over 2 million people in a four year period. Hidden explores the role of the family photograph during rhe Khmer Rouge and the significance of the act of hiding photographs to conceal identity.
Hidden tracks the journey of an individual and a set of photographs the meaning of which shifted dramatically under the Khmer Rouge.
As Sisaphantha and I recreated this journey I made a GPS recording, and used the shape of this line as a guide to display the book. It was important to both Sisaphantha and I that the journey was integral to the work, and this seemed like an important opportunity to work with the form of the book.
We took the decision not to include Sisaphantha’s photographs, so that the reader can engage with them through the written word. If you imagine the book as an attempt to articulate the period in which it is grounded, simply showing Sisapantha’s photographs would not have captured the complexities of how photography, and specifically the family photograph, shifted so dramatically. The writing is an encounter with the photographs, individually and as a collection, in dialog with one another, crossing different periods, young people getting older, styles changing etc. Hidden follows a strand of investigation into photography in Cambodia and the themes it explores over many years, and poses questions which resonate today both photographically and in the complex and fast-moving world around us.
MR: The original pictures – the negatives Sisaphantha carried on her person – are as you say not reproduced in Hidden, and yet from the outset, it is implied in multiple ways that the reader might get to glimpse them. There is, for example, the straightforward expectation of the reader holding a photobook to see photographs within, an expectation amplified by the book’s cover, which references exactly the bag in which the original negaties were carried. Instead, Sisaphantha’s family photographs remain unseen, revealed only through the act of textual descriptions of specific images in Khmer and English. Immediately this brings us to the idea of translation—not just linguistic translation but also conceptual translation, where the book itself serves as a vehicle of and for translation. There is Charles Fox, photographer, translating your own readings of these circumstances. The translations add another layer to that process. So, we have multiple levels of both hiding and translating happening simultaneously. I was also reflecting on your book and how you are always positioned outside. You are both an insider and an outsider, and that dual perspective is fascinating.
Photography has always amplified my perspective as an outsider. I will always be looking in from the fringes of things. I think it’s important to know this position and the complexities of how this impacts the work you make, but also recognising that there is a commitment that holds you in a sense … paying respects to the questions that are presented to you through the years.
CF: Someone recently asked me how long I’ve been working in Cambodia. I’ve been working there since 2006, but I don’t think of it in terms of years—I think of it in terms of my photographic work—from a single image to long term projects that are far removed from my early documentary and press photography roots. Photography has always amplified my perspective as an outsider. I will always be looking in from the fringes of things. I think it’s important to know this position and the complexities of how this impacts the work you make, but also recognising that there is a commitment that holds you in a sense, resisting jumping around but paying respects to the questions that are presented to you through the years.
MR: What brought about this shift?
CF: Over time, I became particularly interested in family photographs and histories—things that were deliberately hidden. One of the most significant photographic collections is Roland Neveu’s work on the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975. He was one of the few photographers who managed to get his images out, documenting the Khmer Rouge’s evacuation of Phnom Penh. His work is an important visual record of that moment in history. But there were other photographers and photographs whose work left the country through different, concealed channels.
For example, Colin Grafton photographed Sisaphantha as a young woman in tradtional Khmer dance poses, and as a ballet dancer, and managed to smuggle them out of the country. These lesser known histories are significant. In these contexts I am interested in photography beyond the event but as a way of navigating what is hidden and the reasons for this.
Eventually I realised that I was always dealing with the hidden. As an example of this, when I was working with the deminer divers I was trying to photograph something underwater that I could never even see: UXO (unexploded ordinance) deep in the rivers of Cambodia resting in zero visibility, and only becoming apparent when the divers managed to raise them. It was the idea of the threat rather than the reality which was the troubling part, that unseen risk. That experience solidified my understanding that certain things would always remain hidden from me. My work then became about exploring what photography could and could not do in such circumstances.
As my practice shifted away from documentary the politics of photography also changed for me. When working on Hidden with Sisaphantha, for instance, the negotiation wasn’t just with the images themselves but with their histories—images taken by people before the Khmer Rouge regime, images that could have led to execution or imprisonment simply for being owned. How do you convey that level of consequence?
MR: So how do you convey that level of consequence?
CF: The Hidden project exists in parallel with my earlier work Buried. I was contacted by Vira Rama with his family photographs which had been buried during the Khmer Rouge period. I made a mock-up of Buried and sent it to the Ramas, asking them to annotate it. They wrote captions and returned it to me. Through this process, the book itself became a site of production, and I kept everything from that exchange—the envelope, the postage, the mock-up. The mock up book became a site of dialog, not just to be viewed but as an object that moved, pass between hands, and carrying layers of significance. The way people hid their photographs during the Khmer Rouge varied dramatically. Some buried them in one place such as the Ramas; others, like Sisaphantha, carried negatives as they moved. These different mechanisms of survival and concealment became really important to attempt to articulate.
It would be easy to categorize these as just two sets of family photographs, but the ways in which they were preserved and transported are fundamentally different. That’s what makes Hidden such a compelling exploration—not just of images, but of the processes and dialogs that surround them. Like so many I am wary of photographs; in complex political times, we don’t know what shifts will occur, and what photography’s role is in these shifts.
One of the key aspects of Hidden was amplifying the significance of the act of hiding photographs. The easy thing, the thing people wanted, was to see the photographs. That was part of the feedback when speaking about the work, people wanted to see them. It would have been simple to reproduce and display them. But when Sisaphantha and I discussed it, we knew we had to find a different way to talk about her photographs.
This connects to the larger themes embedded in the production of the book. For example, the GPS map we made is included in the book but it is only the line we see rather than any geographical markers., We were mindful that this line, whilst it is a representation of Sisaphantha’s journey, it also overlaps with the journey of many others so it was important not to fix a route. To do so would have run against some of the broader ideas of the book, which seeks to challenge fixed ideas both of photography and of the book form. We also resisted marking locations when the whole point is that these histories are fluid, hidden, and buried.
MR: …where photographs were literally hidden and buried…
CF: The flow of images is crucial here—the way they move between people, cultures, and geopolitical spaces. Even when images are buried, at some point, they can be unearthed and reinterpreted. Some viewers wanted these images revealed, as though that would provide closure. But for whom? That’s not what we’re getting at with how the photographs were forced to function. The idea that simply revealing them completes the story ignores the weight of what families carried—literally carried—or buried and later returned to.
I’ve been thinking about what happens to a photograph when it moves from one state to another. The evacuation of Phnom Penh was relatively fast, these images went from being family objects—negatives that could be infinitely reproduced—to fragile artifacts carried through displacement. The negatives, which once symbolized an abundance of possibility, instead became vulnerable, accumulating damage that we now read as a physical mark of their time. In an instant, they were transformed in ways they were never meant to be. During the regime, to be found in possession of negatives/photographs could lead to imprisonment or even execution, so the ownership of a family photograph takes on a whole new unimaginable dimension.
During the Khmer Rouge regime, to be found in possession of negatives/photographs could lead to imprisonment or even execution, so the ownership of a family photograph takes on a whole new unimaginable dimension.
MR: Negatives exist in a state of potentiality, always waiting to become positives, a source of plenitude. But what happens when that potential is never realized? What if the infrastructure no longer exists to develop them? Was there a black market for these processes?
CF: It reminds me of a book about photographs taken by the Khmer Rouge called Stilled Lives: Photographs from the Cambodian Genocide. Photography had been primarily accessible to the urban middle class, but overnight, the Khmer Rouge controlled the visual narrative. They created their own images, using photography to reinforce their ideology. The Khmer Rouge disseminated images that we might term propaganda. But from their perspective, was it propaganda, or simply the new discourse? Photographs continued to be produced, but in a different way—one that supported the regime. The Khmer Rouge even used the conventions of the family photograph in propaganda images, reconstructing an image of family life devoid of its original meaning, repurposing photography to reinforce their version of reality.
MR: This raises a difficult question: Does photography, as a medium, have an inherent tendency to serve oppressive structures? It has no agency of its own, yet it can be co-opted to serve power. How do we deny photography that ability to twist narratives? Can we? Or do we have to deny photography itself?
CF: I don’t know how you deny something that exists in such abundance. But it’s worth thinking about. Books, too, have changed over time—starting as manuals, records, instructions, and shifting through different forms. The same could be said of this project. It has evolved significantly. At some point, you must determine what to show and what to withhold. The idea that photography is always meant to be seen feels wrong to me. We’re supposed to look, but perhaps sometimes, we are also meant to resist looking.
MR: As we know, many hidden archives and photographic collections were created by regimes with the intent that they would never be seen. Yet, inevitably, the archive will find its way to public view. This process of archival bleed is intrinsic to history.
CF: There is a sense that withholding images transforms the archivist or curator from a collaborator to a conspirator, as if something is being deliberately denied. But some things are never meant to be seen – you need to only look at the meticulous photographic record of prisoners who were incarcerated at Toul Sleng (a prison during the regime, now a Genocide Museum), to see how this bleed occurred. There is much written about these photographs; they have appeared in books, journals, and exhibitions, and the reactions to this are also very interesting. They are incredibly complex photographs and I have wondered for some time how we might think of them in relation to other collections of photographs.
MR: In part, I’d argue this is because photography is so omnipresent that we barely recognise it anymore. Scrolling through our diet of social media, we may not even register those images as photographs in the traditional sense, whereas a handmade print commands a different kind of attention. The medium through which we engage with photographs alters our perception of them.
CF: This is especially interesting in the case of a book that does not conform to expectations. If people expect a photobook, they might struggle with the absence of imagery. Some may feel as though they have been led to a point of anticipation, only to be left wanting.
I spend a lot of time thinking about what a photobook is. Some definitions suggest it must contain good photographic work and depict something visually. Yet, this is the most photographic project I have ever made and it contains the least amount of photography. The act of making photographs was the smallest part of the process, yet the work itself is fundamentally photographic. It engages with history, but not as a straightforward document. It does not attempt to present a definitive record, but rather a meditation on a period of time and its associated complexities. For me, the strong reaction to the absence of images in the book affirms the importance of this decision.
MR: That ease with which most people can make photographs these days is part of this insistence on visibility. Hidden moves away from revelation and towards a deeper interrogation of the photographer’s role, a shift rooted in an ethics and a politics of a much more complex space. I wanted to come back to this idea of you as photographer making a book that is fundamentally a collaborative act and an engagement with some very difficult questions. People assume these questions can be answered by a photograph or photographs, when in fact Hidden makes the opposite case. The book compels us to ask whether we need to see an image at all. Does an image need to be shown simply because it exists? Do we need to document everything visually? These questions push us into an alternative space—one where collaboration, engagement, and restraint become as significant as the act of taking a photograph itself.
CF: The act of hiding is a recurring theme. It is not about concealment for its own sake, but about recognizing what should and should not be revealed. There are instincts I must resist, things I have learned but now choose not to apply. The answer, perhaps, lies in asking the right questions rather than seeking to provide all the answers.
Questions evolve. They do not emerge fully formed but grow through experiences and encounters. For me these questions have been shaped by following photography—by tracing the paths of others, by engaging with historical and contemporary images, by standing next to figures who have spent their lives navigating these spaces. The decision to withhold images is not about avoidance but about creating space for different kinds of engagement. It is about acknowledging the limitations of photography while embracing its power to provoke thought in ways beyond the visible image.
MR: You’ve had organizational control and input, which is important. But the work raises bigger questions about the nature of the artist and the artwork. You’re playing with these questions in a way that gives the book power.
You have a dialogue with photography. That’s the important part. There are no definitives here. You rest in the discomfort of not having answers.
CF: To get to this point, there were multiple prototypes of Hidden, with conversations shaping each version. The books aren’t the same. The one currently in Phnom Penh, the one we are looking at today – the photographs are different. Hidden isn’t a static thing —each version is different. It doesn’t claim to be a definitive narrative. It’s Sisaphantha’s story, driven by her recollections and memories, but it resonates with countless others.
You have a dialogue with photography. That’s the important part. There are no definitives here. You rest in the discomfort of not having answers. You can’t solve this. That’s what makes it compelling. There are contradictions, or rather tensions, in how it exists—between being hidden and visible, documentation and interpretation. The translations from one language to the next, this journey could be retold many times over and continue to shift, for me it’s this shift in meaning that means the conversation continues.
MR: Do you mean us, in our acts of looking? Or the wider cultural resonance? Photography has always been mobilized—it was used by the Khmer Rouge, just as it was by the Nazis. Photography disappears in one form and is reinstated in another. Look at the social realism of the 1980s, the way that shaped teaching, the way that emerged in Thatcher’s Britain. Photography is a force that extends its tendrils across everything—science, advertising, politics.
CF: In the case of the of the Khmer Rouge what does it show us ? They employed photography in many ways, in this visual dominance. So, if we speak about the counter to the dominance of the Khmer Rouge photograph, if there is a response to it then maybe firstly, we need to understand what that means to occlude. Then there’s the question, if you don’t deal with this, and just see a photograph, then what? Have we thought any further about it?
There are always expectations. About photobooks. About journeys. About maps. About the photographs themselves. Maybe people want translations, captions, explanations. But what does that add? Maybe there’s nothing to be gained.
MR: For a photobook, that’s a daring choice.
Charles Fox is a photographer and practice-based researcher working with a focus on visual methodologies and collaborative community-based practice. Splitting his time between the UK and South East Asia, Charles has worked in Cambodia since 2006.
Mark Rawlinson is Associate Professor in Art History and the Director of the Centre for Research in Visual Culture at the University of Nottingham.
