Chasing the Ghost in the White Building, 2011 By Jason Tonio Woerner

"In the thirty or so years that have passed since the end of the Khmer Rouge, Phnom Penh has changed drastically, and with it so has the character of the White Building. Artists originally living there have passed on their rooms to their children or sublet their spaces in order to retire elsewhere.

Meanwhile, without government upkeep the building itself has fallen into a state of disrepair deplorable anywhere, but shocking when juxtaposed with the new, high-end hotel and condo construction going on all around it as a result of Cambodia’s Angkor Wat-fueled economic boom.

The White Building truly is a microcosm for Cambodia; for its history, for its problems, for its hopes, and – as its people chart their course through the labryinth of social change brought by Phnom Penh’s urbanization – for its future."

- Jason Tonio Woerner

Part of Chasing the Ghost of Karl Marx