many voices

A two-day symposium on the White Building this weekend has brought together individuals and organisations working in and around one of Cambodia’s most striking modernist creations. Post Weekend spoke to five of the event’s scheduled speakers, who together give a sense of the multiplicity of voices invested in the future of the endangered space. Interviews have been edited for length and clarity. I’ve been involved in the White Building project since 2007, when I was doing an internship as an English teacher in the Bassac area. For three months I was teaching young people around the White Building. In the year 1960, the government built the Bassac riverfront project to be a modern, peaceful place in the city. Now my project is to investigate how the situation is changing along the river. We are working to investigate the demography of the area – I did a lot of surveys and interviews with the White Building residents about the history of the building during the year 1960 and after the Khmer Rouge. I hope that the workshop will raise awareness and show people about the historical structure [of the building] and how it was designed. My hope for the symposium is to invite more people from the community in order to share and spread information about the White Building and to raise awareness to help it.