In 1975, when the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia, they abolished the calendar and declared it &ldquo;Year Zero.&rdquo; (Much of the regime&rsquo;s ultra-violent, xeno- phobic ideology stemmed from French academic Marxism, and so, too, Year Zero had its roots in the notion of &ldquo;Year One,&rdquo; dating from the French Revolution.) The ploy was simple: control time, control the population. &ldquo;New People&rdquo; &ndash; teachers, academics, artists, doctors, lawyers, poli- ticians, monks, any members of a minority group &ndash; were systematically rounded up, and either executed or sent to the fields to work as slave labor. In this classless, agra- rian utopia, the self did not exist, and, like death, it existed in a state outside of time. In the four years of the Khmer Rouge&rsquo;s genocidal reign, owning a clock or a calen- dar was punishable by death. After Pol Pot&rsquo;s ousting in 1979, clocks were read- mitted into the public and private sphere.

These photographs are a compilation of all of the clocks I encountered within a twenty-four&ndash;hour period during a visit to Cambodia&rsquo;s capital, Phnom Penh, in September 2019. Clocks are usually such quotidian decor, it is startling to think of them as lethal machines, as symbols of counterrevolutionary thought, as dange- rous contraband. I was born in Year Zero, which means none of these clocks are older than I am.

In 1975, when the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia, they abolished the calendar and declared it &ldquo;Year Zero.&rdquo; (Much of the regime&rsquo;s ultra-violent, xeno- phobic ideology stemmed from French academic Marxism, and so, too, Year Zero had its roots in the notion of &ldquo;Year One,&rdquo; dating from the French Revolution.) The ploy was simple: control time, control the population. &ldquo;New People&rdquo; &ndash; teachers, academics, artists, doctors, lawyers, poli- ticians, monks, any members of a minority group &ndash; were systematically rounded up, and either executed or sent to the fields to work as slave labor. In this classless, agra- rian utopia, the self did not exist, and, like death, it existed in a state outside of time. In the four years of the Khmer Rouge&rsquo;s genocidal reign, owning a clock or a calen- dar was punishable by death. After Pol Pot&rsquo;s ousting in 1979, clocks were read- mitted into the public and private sphere.

These photographs are a compilation of all of the clocks I encountered within a twenty-four&ndash;hour period during a visit to Cambodia&rsquo;s capital, Phnom Penh, in September 2019. Clocks are usually such quotidian decor, it is startling to think of them as lethal machines, as symbols of counterrevolutionary thought, as dange- rous contraband. I was born in Year Zero, which means none of these clocks are older than I am.

All photos taken on September 6, 2019 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

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Christopher Bollen

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Christopher Bollen

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