Tada Hengsapkul, born in 1987 in Nakhon Ratchasima, has had a camera in his hands since the age of fifteen. This very passionate young Thai photographer uses film cameras and video to capture hidden identities of his homeland, Thailand. He has recently received his Bachelor’s Degree of Art of Photography from Pohchang Academy of Arts.

“No Superego” is a selection of recent and older photos and videos taken over the past 5 years. Topics approached are gender, nature, and sexuality;

Tada Hengsapkul’s photographs often awake a sense of nostalgia. Using mostly film cameras he favors the candid and unplanned over the technically polished and precise shots. The raw, snapshot-like quality of his photographs, evoke films in their look and sense of storytelling.

In his photos and videos Hengsapkul offers an intimate glance at “his” Thailand; His close friends, schoolmates, lover, family, neighbors, and also the nature, the Thai countryside where he was born. The freshness and realism of his photos shift conventional standards of image making in Thailand as well as old power structures and pre-defined gender roles. The crudeness of the nudes, the sexually explicit pose of his models, and the irony of certain scenes emphasize the gap between his works and photos which are praised by the local critique and censorship board. Hengsapkul is attracted by the reality surrounding him. As a response to the watered down photos found in the local magazines and television shows, Hengsapkul focuses on shooting reality with no artifice.

His works could be closely inspired by contemporary photographers such as Wolfgang Tillmans, Richard Billingham, Philip-Lorca diCorcia or Nan Goldin. The overall emotion landscapes sometimes resemble works by Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

This exhibition is Hengsapkul’s first solo show in Bangkok; it presents a broad selection of quality works. From landscapes to nude, portraits and abstract color fields Hengspkul’s photos all have a strong emotional and elegiac core which will certainly not leave the viewer indifferent.