I came back home in 2008, after seven years of study and work in England. I found my parents are a lot older than the last time I saw them. Their bodies are worn out in our house which is decaying. It is said that our body is the house of our soul. So, I am uselessly watching the houses of their souls gradually dilapidated together with this house we have been living in. Our house can be refurbished or even reinforced from time to time, but there are no these options for the houses of their souls.
To me, this project is a psychological therapy through the photography process. I started photographing my parents to reduce the continuing guilt in my mind, and to tell myself at least I do something for them after years of neglect. It is also to remind myself about the hours we have left to spend together. The more I photograph them the clearer I see myself. I flew away for 6,000 miles. I have searched for my soul for several years in a foreign land, just to find it has always been at home in front of my camera.
Born in 1977. Lek Kiatsirikajorn studied painting at Silpakorn University in Bangkok before switching to photography, which interested him with its potential for outreach. He was promising young artist on the Thai arts scene in 2001 when he decided to move to England and study photography at The Arts Institute at Bournemouth. Lek returned to Thailand in 2008 after spending almost seven years studying and working as a fashion photography assistant in the UK. This new period of his life has been inspiring him to produce photography projects which are directly related to his own society.
During his last two years in England, Lek became fascinated with great American documentary photographers such as Walker Evens, Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld and Alec Soth. The way they managed to project a strong visual documentation of American society through a personal vision inspired him to look back to his own roots. As an expatriate, he came to think he could understand his home country better than when he lived there. He became aware of aspects of it which he has not seen before, and this enables him to portray it in a more universal way through images of daily life.
Lek is now based in Bangkok, and has been exhibiting internationally from Singapore, Hong Kong, China, France, England, Netherlands, Finland, Russia to USA. In July 2013, he was one of the 20 photographers selected for ” Russia Photo Expedition ”. The project was in the conjuction with the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg. Lek’s work, ”Restoration from Within” was exhibited at The State Russian Museum in September, together with works from world- renowned photographers, such as Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Pablo Batholomew, Stanley Green and Martin Kollar.
In 2012, Lek was selected by Quai Branly Museum in Paris for the 2012 photography grant. 13 of 22 images from the series, ”Lost in Paradise” which he produced with the grant were included to the museum’s permanent photography collection.
