It was during the night of alert , that replaced the serene sleeping time for many people. It was so unpredictable what the night might bring on the streets closed from the unsafe riverbanks. Thousands of sandbags weren’t enough to protect us and limit the fear.
It was during the night that documentary photographer and visual artist Miti Ruangkritya started his study of the 2011 floods in Thailand. Flooding – that persisted for several months and caused more than 800 deaths – They seriously threatened the heart and the head of the country, its capital Bangkok, where million of residents lived days full of fear, that Miti also experienced .
Miti’s artistic and documentary reaction was the opposite to what could be expected from a photographer involved in documenting a natural disaster . He captured dream-like scenes,with surreal tranquillity and an infinite and continuous sense of wait. The timeless desolate and flooded nights in Bangkok, which Miti photographed with no people and without emphasizing suffering and tragedy.
“I wanted to capture the sense of stillness inherent to the dread in contrast to the frenetic images that were being presented by the media. Through the dream-like imagery, I wanted to present scenes as if they had been conjured by the viewers themselves, tracing that sense of fear within the imagination and the subconscious. I like the quality that nighttime images often present, which I think would have been very difficult to capture when the city is fully operational during the day. There’s a sense of mystery about the nighttime, and I like the drama you can create in the shadows”. Miti said to BK magazine.
Kathmandu Photo Gallery in Bangkok – a gallery founded by artist and photographer Manit Sriwanichpoom, who is one of the Miti’s mentor – shows for the first time in town the exhibition “Imagining Flood” until April 28, after the project had been internationally exhibited at festivals such as Noorderlicht, Singapore, Angkor, Phnom Penh and Chobi Mela and awarded with a silver medal at Prix de la Photographie 2012 and mentioned at Magenta Flash Forward. The Bangkok show includes 6 large-size images on 18 of the entire project and a self-published book is also available. This is not the first experience in self-publishing for the photographer who is well-aware that is not common in Bangkok. “Imagining Flood” is his forth self-published book following controversial works about Thai politics. In difficult times for editorial and printing industry all over the world, Bangkok is one of those cities where it is probably easier to experiment with new ways, Miti Ruangkritya actually is working – with other photographers, graphic designers, movie makers and curators – on a new photography magazine, hoping for a new positive flood , a mix of art and culture in Bangkok.
Eliseo Barbàra
MoST Artists
Miti Ruangkritya: Imagining Flood
March 2 – April 28, 2013
Kathmandu Photo Gallery
87 Pan Road, Silom
Bangkok
Thailand
It is available a self-published book. Edition 100.
Please contact the photographer.
