» Black landscapes #6

Black landscapes #6 is a continuation of Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai’s project Day by Day (2014), based on her research of the Vietnamese migrant community living on Tonlé Sap lake, Cambodia. Having been through many wars, the Khmer rouge genocide, as well as the ongoing, complicated relationships between the two neighboring countries, they have become stateless immigrants with no identification, rights, education, or protection from the laws. In 2016, Mai returned to Tonlé Sap and came across many abandoned floating houses, gradually sinking in the water. Many families had left the lake in recent years to return to Vietnam due to the polluted waters and decreasing fish population. Black landscapes #6 marks the locations of families who once lived on Tonlé Sap but that have been made to abandon their homes. The landscapes absent of humans stand in for the thousands of stories, memories and lives that are slowly fading away and into the mighty Mekong River. The only remnant still standing is the green light tube that once attracted insects and fish that now illuminate the night – the last symbol of a nomadic culture fast disappearing.  Echoing in the background is a prayer sung by an old shaman – herself an undocumented migrant who has left the water to live on shore:
 
It was fated that the fish stock would dry up;
it’s of no use to wish for their return.  
The fish are gone, the people suffer, living a life no longer plentiful.  
But all there is to do is pray:  
for fish to come, for life to calm.