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Exhibit explores effects of Southeast Asian landmines

By Daily Bruin Staff

April 4, 1995 9:00 p.m.

Exhibit explores effects of Southeast Asian landmines

Artist works to prohibit production of landmines, educate
Americans on war

By Barbara Hernandez

Daily Bruin Staff

Every month hundreds of people are killed or injured by
landmines strewn across Southeast Asia. The graphic images of the
new Kerckhoff Art Gallery exhibit "Danger!! Mines!!" clearly show
the damage and victims left by landmines, which often kill and maim
innocent civilians sometimes years afterward.

The exhibit attempts to enlighten and educate people about the
issue of landmines.

"I hope this gives people an understanding of what landmines can
do," says artist Hei Han Khiang of the photos making up the
exhibit. "I hope people get some kind of conscience of what gets
left behind in war."

Khiang, a graduate student in art, fled with his family during
the Cambodian civil war to a Thai refugee camp. In 1981 he and his
family managed to emigrate to the U.S. where Khiang began his
odyssey into higher education. Attending a few universities in New
York, Khiang also studied at Beijing University in 1988, and
witnessed the student uprising in Tien An Men Square. It was
photographing the movement and the subsequent violence that made
Khiang realize photography was his calling.

"I didn’t know much about photography then," he says, "I was
only a beginner. I wasn’t trying to be published."

His photographs were sold to the Associated Press and various
news services during his stay in Beijing, much to the anxiety of
embassy officials and worried friends.

To Khiang, landmines seem to be a world class problem. He’s
presently working with a group of American volunteers to persuade
the U.S. and other countries to ban the production of landmines for
war-ravaged countries. Unfortunately for Khiang, he sees many
Americans as lacking a global awareness.

"American don’t even seem to know their (own identity) … Many
don’t even know the problems in America."

Landmines may cost as little as $2 apiece, but removal may cost
thousands. One landmine may destroy lives and families.

"People can walk on the same place hundreds of times and nothing
happens. Then one day it goes off," he says.

One woman, a subject of Khiang’s "Mother and Baby in a Hammock,"
lost her leg and her husband as she stepped on a mine. For a
peasant who must work daily in the fields to survive, the loss of a
limb may mean starvation and death to a family. "She used to tell
me how when she was young she used to love to climb trees, jump and
run," Khiang recounts. "She told me she wanted to commit suicide
because she had no one to take care of her."

Another photo includes a stop at the International Red Cross,
where numbers of artificial limbs line the hallways for landmine
casualties.

Many people wonder why an artist would take such a graphic and
unpleasant subject to heart. To Khiang this subject means a lot to
him, a lot to his identity. "My art is who I am," he says.

ART: "Danger!! Mines!!" showing now at Kerckhoff Art Gallery
through April 14. Reception today at 5:30 p.m.

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