{"id":8245,"date":"2020-07-03T14:06:17","date_gmt":"2020-07-03T07:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathmanduphotobkk.com\/?p=8245"},"modified":"2024-02-18T13:01:08","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T06:01:08","slug":"future-lost-manit-sriwanichpoom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathmanduphotobkk.com\/?p=8245","title":{"rendered":"Past \u2013 Lost \/ Manit Sriwanichpoom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kathmandu Photo Gallery<\/p>\n

proudly presents<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lost<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A photographic exhibition by\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Manit Sriwanichpoom<\/strong><\/p>\n

11 July \u2013 26 September\u00a02020<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This photographic series was born from an accidental error during an attempt to scan and digitize old glass negatives from 1964 \u2013 1968 taken by Liang Ewe\u00a0<\/em>(1911 \u2013 1992), photographer & owner of a photographic studio in Phuket, Thailand. Ideally, the modern digital scanner would accurately transfer historical data from the analog to the digital format; we honestly believe that the resulting data would be correct & match exactly the original source. In reality, the digital format can be corrupted, distorted & manipulated at any stage of the process: scanning, transferring, transmitting, viewing & printing. Sudden gaps of information in the image files occurred at random on Liang Ewe\u2019s portraits, neglecting to convey certain bodily parts: the eyes, the mouth and sometimes the whole face is missing, creating the sense that bits of these people are trapped on another dimension of space and time. Like images from a horror movie, a face without a mouth has no eyes to gaze out from, another face has eyes but no mouth with which to utter a sound.<\/p>\n

Ironically, although we can obtain perfect digitally-scanned images of them, we\u2019ll never know the identities and the tales of the people in the photographs, since the studio manager never kept records of his sitters: their names, their ages, where they\u2019re from and what they did. They were just customers. We know what they look like but the faces are unnamed.<\/p>\n

In a country like Thailand, history is of kings and rulers of men. We tend not to promote or encourage the writing of the history of commoners, as if their stories are meaningless & worthless to remember. \u00a0The discovery of Liang Ewe\u2019s negatives is the rediscovery of a past that has survived imbued within 2-dimensional glass plates. In the 19th<\/sup>century when photography was invented, some viewed it with the superstitious fear that their soul would be stolen, lost, trapped by the camera within the frame of the photograph forever. The series \u2018Lost<\/em>\u2019 (2015) confirms that what photography records becomes the past the instant the camera shutters close. We still know nothing about these people, lost in the digital twilight zone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo-artist Manit Sriwanichpoom<\/strong>has been creating and exhibiting work of Thai contemporary art for over 30 years. His work has been widely exhibited both in Thailand and internationally, forming part of many of the world\u2019s important museum and private collections.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t