The once school and then once communist Security Prison 21 in the capital Phnom Penh, Cambodia is now a museum. In this museum is displayed the “before” portraits of prisoners. These portraits were taken of the people immediately preceding their executions. (See here and here for more.)

These go far beyond photographs, far beyond any conversation of what a picture can do. They summarize everything shitty that we do and/or ignore, human weakness and corruption and failure and hate, and they should be in history school books b/c this is what so much of history is and shouldn’t be. There is nothing good or redeeming about these images except the small chance that we can do better for having seen them.

collage: copyright/credit unknown, found image here.