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RESEARCH PAPERS

No. 72 (2025): Thémata Revista de Filosofía

Secrets of a fase and enigmas of the gaze. The lives of a perpetrator image

DOI
https://doi.org/10.12795/themata.2025.i72.18
Submitted
November 13, 2025
Published
2025-12-31

Abstract

The power of images depicting mass crimes to shape the social imagination is indisputable. While the effects of such images have been extensively studied, the mode of their effects—namely, who looks at the images, the relationship between the gaze and the crime, and how subsequent viewers deal with their impact—has received comparatively less research attention. This article analyzes one of the emblematic perpetrator images of the Cambodian genocide from its production to its subsequent "life," which includes the following aspects: use by the criminals in their repression files, "artistic" exhibition, display in the Tuol Sleng museum-memorial, appropriation for denunciation purposes, and post-memorial legacy by the victim's family.

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