Along the Way is a project that emerged during a visit to Nongkhai - a small sleepy provincial town in the North East of Thailand on the western bank of Mekong river, bordering Laos.
Along the Way stemmed from an invitation by Le Pool P, an artist collective from France whose work deals with site-specific, intervention and process-based art.
I wanted to explore a mood and scenario with greater warmth and stronger sense of human interaction. After spending a few days familiarising myself with the town, I abandoned my 35mm camera and started using a small Fuji 'Hello Kitty' Polaroid camera that I had borrowed from a friend.
The people that occupy this set of images range from a couple on a first date fishing next to a river bank, an unsuccessful boyfriend waiting for hours but failing to catch any fish, and a teenager playing his favourite tune, as well as a girl who wrote that she was shy of her picture being snapped.
In contrast, the second set of images presents landscapes of Nongkhai. Contrary to the somewhat cliche and generic landscape photos that present tourists and townspeople backdropped against the sweeping vistas, I was more interested in the capturing the colour of the region. During my stay, I was struck by the deep greens and blues that occupied Nongkhai, appearing like blocks of colour
For the exhibition that was held on Jommanee Beach, Mekong river, I sourced out all local materials for the Polaroid installation. The short leg dining table that were used to display Polaroid images, mattress and swimming rings were borrowed from nearby riverside restaurant and swimming rings rental shop while the 2 lamps were bought from local electrical stores.
The dining table and mattress allowed local viewers to sit relax and enjoy seeing the series of Polaroid as if they were having dinner by the beach with friends and family. Polaroid images were laid out neatly in rows of portrait and landscape but without anything for it to hold in places, which suggest to the viewer that it could be pick up or move around as needed. I hope in this way it will maximise the interactive quality between local people and the work itself which was one of my main intention for this project.