Sbek thom is Khmer large shadow theatre, performed three or four times a year at night beside a rice field or a pagoda. Two-metre panels are cut from a single piece of cowhide, dyed with kandaol bark, and pierced so that light passes through the cut-away areas. The figures have no joints — the dancer carries the whole panel overhead on two bamboo sticks and animates it with his own body.

This system takes the audience's view: a white cotton sheet stretched between bamboo poles, lit from behind by one wood fire, so the screen reads warm amber at its centre and falls off toward the corners. Content sits on that glow as dark form. One dominant figure per view, generous empty screen around it.