‘THE FACES OF ANGKOR’ PHOTO EXHIBIT OPENS AT UN HEADQUARTERS

Note to Correspondents

‘THE FACES OF ANGKOR’ PHOTO EXHIBIT OPENS AT UN HEADQUARTERS

An exhibition featuring photographs of Cambodia’s renowned Angkor temple sites will open with a formal ceremony and reception on Thursday, 22 June 2006, at 6:30 p.m. in the General Assembly Visitors’ Lobby.  The exhibit, entitled “The Faces of Angkor”, is a joint presentation by photographers Baku Saito of Japan and Chris Rainier of Canada.

The exhibit will be opened by Ramu Damodaran, Officer-in-Charge of the Outreach Division of the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI).  Statements will be made by Alicia Barcena, Chef de Cabinet; Chem Widhya, Permanent Representative of Cambodia to the United Nations; Kenzo Oshima, Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations; Hélène-Marie Gosselin, Director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Liaison Office in New York; and Yasushi Akashi, Vice-Chair of “The Faces of Angkor” Executive Committee for the United Nations.  Highlighting the opening is a performance of the Khmer classical Apsara dance by the Cambodian-American Heritage Dance Troupe.

Baku Saito, a freelance photographer from Japan, participated in 14 of the Angkor Ruins Research Missions and established an organization dedicated to the restoration and preservation of this world heritage site.  Since 1994, he has been taking photographs of the Angkor faces.  Chris Rainier, a photographer for the National Geographic Society, specializes in documenting indigenous cultures for the Society’s Cultures Initiative.  His images of sacred places and indigenous peoples have been widely exhibited and collected around the world.  In this photographic exhibition, both Saito and Rainier capture one of the world’s most spectacular cultural treasures.

The Angkor site was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and on the List of World Heritage in Danger in December 1992, a year after the Paris Peace Agreements put an end to two decades of civil war and conflict in Cambodia.

This exhibit, sponsored by UNESCO, the DPI and “The Faces of Angkor” Executive Committee for the United Nations, was made possible with the support of the Permanent Missions of Cambodia and Japan to the United Nations.

For more information on United Nations exhibitions, call Jan Arnesen, tel.:  (212) 963-8531; or Liza Wichmann, tel.:  (212) 963-0089.

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For information media • not an official record