With experience in organising image-making and photobook collectives, overseas and local representatives exchange thoughts and ideas on initiating and fostering photobook projects and culture in their respective regions, sharing on their similarities and differences as well as publications worth noting.
© Edwin Chuk Yin Man for HKIPF
Speakers
Michelle Chan Wan Chee (Phoboko)
Pahparn Sirima (PhotoBangkok)
Speakers’ Bio
Michelle Chan Wan Chee is a relational artist who works primarily in photography. She uses the camera and manipulated images to generate connections and conversations with people. She is interested in the notion of home, sense of belonging, human connections and bonding, and familial relationships. Her work often reflects the inherited familial beliefs that inform our daily gestures and rituals, and explores the Chinese beliefs that have become recurrent over centuries. Her work has been exhibited in Hong Kong and internationally, including the Angkor Photo Festival 2019, Singapore International Photography Festival 2020 and Objectifs’ Women in Film and Photography 2021 (Singapore). In 2021, she received the Prince Claus Seed Awards for her ongoing project, Kaufu. The work was presented in a solo exhibition, as part of the Hong Kong International Photo Festival 2022.
Alongside her individual artistic practice, she founded Hong Kong Photobook Club (Phoboko), a platform that brings people together through photobooks and the topics they contain. Through monthly meetings, photobooks are used as “social objects” for dialogues and knowledge exchange between participants. Group discussion ranged from how creators convey their concepts using photography and materialising them into photobook form, to exploring the culture, society, and history that the photobooks make visible. As a community, Phoboko interrogates photography as a medium, promote the vision of local Hong Kong artists while in dialogue with other photographers in the Asia-Pacific region.
A Bangkok-born Creative Director and Curator, Sirima Chaipreechawit (Pahparn) (b.1988) immersed her life in art because she has a clear goal of using the power of art to push society forward.
As someone who is passionate about black and white photography, Sirima started out as a member of Street Photography Thailand. She is certainly no stranger to the Thai art scene as she later became a gallery director, creative director and editor.
Currently, she is a founder of GroundControl, a media and art agency which presents art movements and supports the art creation of Thai artists.
Also, she is a co-founder and creative director at HOP – Hup Of Photography, a photographic gallery, photobook library and art space to create a platform for the photography community in Thailand.
Furthermore, she is an independent curator and representative of artists with a multitude of exhibitions under her name.
Language
English
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