EXCERPTS FROM INTERVIEW WITH DHAM SRIFUENGFUNG
Photographer
Photographer
Born in Bangkok, but shipped off to a junior school in Cheltenham at the wee age of 9, the secludedness of the English countryside informed a lot of Dham’s taste early on.
Dham Srifuengfun grew up between two drastically different landscapes.
“They were very secluded places, coming from living in Bangkok to that kind of environment, you have to find ways to do anything that will keep you distracted.” For him, that meant painting, drawing and soon, photography.
Photography was introduced to Dham in the form of an old DSLR camera handed down to him by his brother. It began as a means of recording whatever he saw from day to day, whether it was landscape or still life. He recalls another story of when his mum almost missed flight home from Tokyo because she was buying him a Polaroid camera.
“And then I fell in love with printing and shooting on film. In a way it’s reversing backwards to when I did art because you think about the colours, all the different spectrums, and the variables you can control. Like controlling the hardness or softness of a pencil. The results were magical and never the same.”
This early interplay between observation and creation would come to define his approach, not just to photography, but to the world itself.
His Thai identity, something he is always aware about, wasn’t always intentionally foregrounded in his work.
“Being Thai you’re always aware and proud of your culture but nowadays for the young generation being proud and aware isn’t enough, you also have to show it.”
Dham didn’t consciously try to make his work ‘Thai,’ but others saw it, whether it be in the colours or lighting he used. Eventually, his later projects became quite Thai. A long-form project titled Swim to Me began with his childhood nanny, a tribute to love, of her and of Thailand. Shot over five years, the personal project was a love letter to the people and objects he holds attachments to from the past and present.
In that sense, Dham considers himself a collector of sorts. He’s collected seashells since he was young, his childhood bedroom full of them. His still life photography is in a way, a “return to childhood.”
“Photography is like collecting in a way — you’re collecting moments, memories, you’re collecting a composition. I like that they are seen and treated as precious artifacts.”
He was just in Japan when he bought something that came wrapped in a beautiful ribbed paper which he saved to photograph. These objects can look precious but sometimes they are simply just a piece of packaging, “but it means something to me that I kept it. I guess that’s what trinkets are.”
SEE FULL STORY IN ARTIFACT ISSUE N°1