Portfolio Ponita KEO

សu# ONE WHO IS CONTENT

2021-2022

Ponita Keo

Creative Documentary & Photojournalism

by Magnum Photos and Spéos

សu# One Who Is Content

Five years ago Sokha was a businesswoman in Cambodia. She spent her days away from home and on the move. She supported her husband financially too.

Today Sokha lives in France and everything seems to be the complete reverse.

Knowing very little about Sokha, I went into this project with a preconceived idea that when she came to France, she had lost her agency.

For a while, I couldn’t see beyond the monotonous life of a woman wedged between the infinite clutter of her home and the presence of her husband.

I later discovered not only who she was in her past, but also who she is in the present. I began to understand why she has accepted, if not chosen, this life- a life that secures a future for her grandchildren.

Resourceful, forward-thinking, and very much a matriarch in her own right, she was a decision maker then and remains one now.

Despite these drastic life changes, she says she is content.

Sokha in Khmer means one who is content.

Ponita Keo (b. 1991) is a Cambodian documentary photographer and filmmaker currently based in Paris, France.

She previously worked in broadcast television in Beijing before moving to Paris in 2021 to dedicate full-time to documentary photography and other forms of creative production.

Growing up as a third culture individual raised in Southeast Asia and Europe, her work is influenced by her personal experiences of identity and often draws inspiration from her cultural roots. She is interested in stories around themes of history and identity, and seeks to honour the different realities of varying subjects in her work.

Ponita was art director for the short experimental film, Grey (2019), which was nominated for Best Experimental Film in Cannes Shorts and made the official selection in the Beijing Indie Film Festival. She has produced video work commissioned by the Documentation Center Cambodia and has co-directed and taken part in documentary film collaborations with visual and performance artists in Cambodia and China, respectively. +33 6 23 96 43 70 ponitakeo@gmail.com www.ponitakeo.com

សu# One Who Is Content Ponita Keo

Creative Documentary & Photojournalism

by Magnum Photos and Spéos 2021-2022