Dinh Q. Lê Moorpark, California The Quality of Mercy

Dinh Q Lê's chamber focuses on a Cambodian prison called S-21 where some 15,000 people were tortured and killed by the Khmer Rouge regime. The administrators of this former High School turned prison photographically documented each of the prisoners. Of the 15,000 people sent to the prison only 5 people survived. Lê uses photographs of those killed at S-21 not for us to wonder what they were thinking moments before they were killed. In this installation the viewer becomes the subject. The eyes of those killed ask "what happened here?" "Why didn't the world take notice?" "Why didn't you act?" They are looking at us for an answer.