Somewhere in Thailand stands a replica of the Trevi Fountain. Somewhere else in Thailand, Rodin’s The Thinker sits pondering his epic poem in front of the Gates of Hell.
Last Life of Hellboy
Kamthorn Paowattanasuk’s “Postcards from Thailand” at the RMA Institute may seem confusing and misleading at first glance. Postcards are stamped with place and time — evidence of travel personalised with a brief note. Bangkok is illustrated by the standard photographs of Wat Arun at sunset, of Chao Praya River, and the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. Phuket is identified by an image of long-tail boats lining a sandy shore.
But Kamthorn’s “postcards”, not-to-be found in bookstore turnstiles or souvenir shops, presents a different Thailand — a Thailand of Baroque columns and pilasters, of small towns built as imitation Tuscan villages or by camper trailers atop cliffs.
Travel has always been the central component of Kamthorn’s photographic practice. Although starting out his arts education painting, Kamthorn was later to find photography more compatible with his lifestyle. He travels often, and goes camping at least once a month.
“I see things through my travels. They are not research trips. I stumble upon places. When I’m struck by them, I begin planning [my projects],” says Kamthorn.
An earlier exhibition, “Holy Alloy — Pearly Gates” at Kathmandu Photo Gallery at the end of 2008, showcased a new trend in temple structures in the Greater Bangkok area: temple gates made out of gold-plated alloys and gold-painted cement statues of Buddha and other Hindu gods.
“I’ve always been interested in photographing the new and contemporary,” says Kamthorn, “When I take photos of temples, I don’t pay attention to old mosaics and jewels. I want to capture temples of this era, temples that are products of modern culture.”
Kamthorn’s exhibition in 2012, “Disco Buddha”, continued the thread of the Buddhist practice in Thai society. He created surrealist collages of statues of celebrated Thai monks against various backdrops to reflect the at-the-time largely negative public perception of Buddhist monasteries.
In this regard, many of his works and social commentaries are often seen as a sort of light-hearted comedy, although he insists he is not making critiques.
“When I was working on ‘Disco Buddha’, a religion protection group was following my moves very closely on social media. I was only interested in portraying what’s happening,” he comments.
“When I was young, monks walked around collecting alms. Now the monks have to take tuk tuks to a spot where people park their cars. More people are working for bigger corporations, not small private businesses. Society has changed, not for better or for worse.”
“Postcards from Thailand”, Kamthorn explains, was born out of the same sense of curiosity and desire to reveal Thailand as it is. The title of the exhibition invites obvious interpretations. All of the framed candy-coloured photographs on the gallery walls were taken in Thailand, but none of the subjects or landscapes appear particularly “Thai”.
Through his journeys around Thailand, Kamthorn discovered the Thai-style version of Tuscany, Venice, Santorini and Lijiang. He discovered France and England and even the Wild West. “The initial idea was very simple. I was fascinated by how a whole Italian town was imported here. I started encountering similar places as this trend seemed to grow,” he explains. “I wanted to fool with my friends by taking pictures of these places and pretend that I’ve travelled abroad, before revealing that I actually never left Thailand.”
Although Kamthorn originally took the photos in black and white, the scope of the project evolved throughout the creation process. “I got to talking to leading photographer Manit [Sriwanichpoom] and he recommended that I look at old postcards — black and white ones that had since been colourised. We were talking about parallels, layers of the old, superimposed with the new,” says Kamthorn.
The idea of creating faux vintage postcards developed alongside Kamthorn’s interest with modern society.
“In a typical postcard, you tell people where you are and what you are doing there. I got to thinking that if I were to mail these photos as postcards, they would be stamped as from Thailand. This is Thailand. These are not postcards from Italy,” he says.
The works exhibited are arranged chronologically, according to the sequence in which Kamthorn digitally altered the photos. The first few have realistic colours, recreated from his memories of his travels to Europe, while the subsequent ones became more imaginative.
“I realised there’s no reason the sky has to be blue,” he says, smiling. A black and white photo of Italian houses with iconic wooden window shutters become a portrait of a summer vacation town, with blue birds on the roof against pink skys — much like the fiery shades in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A photograph outside a cafe is painted blue and yellow, reminiscent of Van Gogh’s Cafe Terrace at Night, and aptly named Van Gogh and Wong Kar Wai Must have Visited this Place.
Through combining metaphor with reality, Kamthorn illuminates an aspect of the evolving Thai lifestyle. He draws out an inherent Thai-ness directly from the deviation and absence of it. He understands Thailand through his travels and his thought process can be traced through his documentations.
“I think Thai people are great at adapting. This new phenomenon may have begun from making exact replicas, but what is interesting is how these locations may be transformed in the future,” he says. “What will we create out of them? How will we make them ours? Or will they be abandoned when people get bored? I’m interested in how contemporary lifestyle will evolve, in where we are going.”
'Postcards from Thailand' is on display at the RMA Institute through June 8.
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