Or you can think about a dark and grey building called „The White Building“. The housing complex has space for over 400 homes and was originally built for social housing and used for artist residences in the 60s. It has turned grey with time and events. It is stretched aside a small busy street inhabited by all possible retails for all possible needs from hairdressers to tiny gambling spots to rolling fruit boxes and to barbecued chicken stands (and places we do not dare to discover). We would have never entered it. It is very dark. A version of white I couldn’t picture before. It is a universe by its own, a village in a capital. With own independent structures and rules, abandoned and set free. And it is very alive – unlike the shattered forgotten building behind it, called „The Grey Building“. The aisles are shady but inhabited by running children and small Buddhist shrines with glowing incense sticks responding to the dogs who mistake this inside for the outside. The little cafe on the street opened its non existent doors to a film screening during the festival Bonn Phum Nov Bo-Ding [1], presenting films of artists who learned and lived in that building. The films try to catch the social architecture showing that its not the stigma of poverty nor crime and brutality that rule this community but a shared pride and common understanding. An old lady is interviewed [2]. She is a dance teacher. Living in the rotting, vibrant White Building. Passing on the culture to younger generations. Teaching them not only grace, but also morality and hygiene – that is how she puts it. She doesn’t mention where she was hiding during the Khmer Rouge regime. How she disguised her talent and knowledge and what she saw without her glasses, this attribute for intellectualism that could have cost her everything. She just keeps smiling.
[1] www.whitebuilding.org
[2] „The White Building Has Dancers“ by Chev Deoun and Eng Rithchandaneth