At around 7pm on May 13, 2010, Maj Gen Khattiya Sawasdipol, or Seh Daeng (Red Commander), was shot in the head while giving an interview to foreign reporters. Photographer Steve Pace was there and took the key picture. His image of the collapsed and bloodied general being carried away, published in several major newspapers worldwide, is what people still remember about this still-unresolved political assassination.
Reflections Seen Before.
"I wasn't looking for simple and straightforward press shots," said Pace. "I was looking for something else. I don't know, something which could explain the situation on the ground but also give it a bit more depth."
The Wall Street Journal named the shot one of the most prolific news photos of 2010. His works have been published in The Times, New York Times, LA Times, Irish Times, Time Magazine and The Wall Street Journal. Pace studied art and photography at Ridge Street Art College and Falmouth School of Art. After working for several years as a second photographer in top studios in London, Pace decided to quit and come to Thailand to "do more of what I wanted to do".
Pace has been based in Bangkok since 2003, and was "completely on the ground" during the 2010 political unrest, covering almost every event.
His latest exhibition, "The London Project: A State Of Mind", at Soy Sauce Factory, is all about that tumultuous period.
Steve Pace.
Without prior knowledge of his previous works, however, the exhibition may seem completely irrelevant to many in Thailand. For a start, the images were shot in London. One wonders what a blurry image of a train passing by at night, an upward shot of a burst of snowflakes with city buildings and black sky as background or a shot of what seems like mannequins in a sex toy shop has to do with all the violence he witnessed in Bangkok.
"An altered perception of the physical world allowed me to capture images that create a visual translation of the coexistence of my past and present state of mind," said Pace. "The ambiguity and abstractness is the product of working in brutal conflicts and severe situations. My photographs are the journey through my own internal and external worlds." But while these subject matters are definitely unrelated, it's interesting to speculate about the state of mind Pace was in while taking these shots, considering how this series was shot less than a year after his coverage of the unrest in Bangkok.
"The thing is I don't like to take viewers by the hand into my work," said Pace. "There has to be a certain amount of intelligence and interpretation coming from the viewers. But yes, sure, if someone is coming in here with no experience of the works I have done before, they are going to be wondering in their heads a little bit."
One particular photograph, however, provokes the sense of a gruesome and bloody scene. Reflections Seen Before is a shot through a smeared window with the glow of red lights seemingly far away.
"When I saw this from a distance I thought of the compositional aspect of it," said Pace.
"I saw the colours and I thought I could make it represent a shot I took in Bangkok of congealed blood on the floor and that's what I tried to recreate — the shocking scene I photographed a year before."
In Movements By Feet To An Altered State, Pace captured an ordinary flight of stairs, but the blurred image suggests restlessness and tumult, not of the scene in front of him, but of something that's still rooted deeply within the photographer himself.
Pace said he was thinking about the time when "bullets were coming across my head and people around me were being killed".
"I'm not looking to just simply document what's in front of me, he said. "I'm trying to connect emotionally as a visual artist to the events unfolding in front of me. I feel to see, see to feel.
"Some situations I photograph can be physically and mentally exhausting. But it's here in these most intense situations where I feel strongly connected and believe that I have shot with a kind of honesty."
"The London Project: A State Of Mind" runs until Dec 7 at Soy Sauce Factory, Charoen Krung Soi 24.
Movements By Feet To An Altered State.
