Monat: August 2015

Yvan Cohen has been photographing in the Chinatown district of Bangkok for some 6 years now – visiting once or twice a week, mostly at night.

The project doesn’t have a clearly defined starting point because he didn’t plan to document Chinatown; there was no initial goal and no assignment. He was simply drawn to an area that he found visually inspiring because it felt genuine, it felt evocative and it felt connected to the past.

For anyone who knows Bangkok – or at least has an image of the city in their mind’s eye – they will know from his pictures that the districts he has been photographing represent a neglected facet of this metropolis. The typical caricature of Bangkok is a city of exotic temples, gleaming skysrapers, steamy bars, saffron-clad monks and eternally smiling inhabitants.

Yet while much of Bangkok’s appeal is derived from these images of oriental exoticism, the reality is that many local communities and numerous historic buildings have already been devoured by rapid and unplanned development. The Bangkok of the postcard and the travel brochure is fast disappearing.

It is precisely Chinatown’s connection to the past, its anti-modern identity and its sense of culture, ancestry and tradition which draws him to it. Chinatown and a few other districts remain islands of authenticity where you can still catch glimpses of what life would have been like in this city decades, or perhaps even a century, ago.

The pictures don’t carry a message per se, they don’t document a burning issue but they are a testament to an aspect of this city’s identity which is increasingly threatened. One day, perhaps not too far in the future, these pictures will serve as a visual bridge to the past and as a poignant reminder of a history and of an identity that risks being completely erased.

See more of Yvan Cohen`s photos about Chinatown at:

https://www.facebook.com/yvancohen/media_set?set=a.10150311334797854.321259.635342853&type=3

Also see:

A video portrait by Bangkok based multimedia journalist Bradley Cox of photographer Yvan Cohen in Bangkok’s Chinatown district from his occasional series „Long Story Short“. 

Long Story Short – A Photographer in Chinatown from Bradley Cox on Vimeo.

Yvan is a founding member of LightRocket, a cutting edge online service for photographers, including secure backup, customizable websites and direct sales. After honing his passion for photography in Europe, Yvan arrived in Asia in 1991 where he has been living and working as a photojournalist ever since. Yvan’s assignments have ranged from shooting fashion in Bangkok to covering major political and social stories across much of Asia.

Fluent in English, French and Thai, he has worked regularly for a range of international publications including, Time, The Far Eastern Economic Review, The Australian, the New York Times and L’Express. Yvan was also a former photographic correspondent for AsiaWeek Magazine.

https://www.lightrocket.com/yvancohen

“Koh Pich, which translates into Diamond Island, sits at the mouth of where the Tonle Bassac river’s journey begins towards Vietnam. Located just in front of Phnom Penh city center, the island didn’t exist half a century ago. Its short existence has been marked by violent evictions in 2006 followed by a tragic stampede during the water festival of 2010 that left at least 339 people dead. Koh Pich has become a showcase for Phnom Penh’s developmental ambitions. The two-kilometre-long island is home to a golf driving range, the city’s largest international exhibition centre, a fire station, a new city hall and a theatre. The whole project is megalomaniac, and kitsch is on display everywhere.”

In the beginning there was sand. And many castles in the air, but they were still hidden. Koh Pich was like a bucolic pocket close to the city, an excursion goal for my Sunday afternoons. It was bare and raw, and gifted with a lot of shore where I could contemplate why I was not going to the sea. 

But step-by-step over the years, the diamonds came together and it was fascinating to observe. One of the first characters to move to the island, just in front of the brand new Koh Pich City Hall, was the white rabbit with its bag of dollars. Of course, I thought of Alice in Wonderland, but this was a completely perverted version of the character. In Alice in Wonderland he has a watch, while the one in Koh Pich has dollars. ‘Time is money’…

This images were taken between early 2012 and March 2015, but my first visit was in 2009. It is as distant as a childhood memory. The first constructions, like Elite Town, already look outdated compared to the serious, Singapore-inspired buildings that are under construction these days. There used to be a water park, but only the dilapidated gate remains. A brand new ruin.  

Koh Pich might seem weird or exaggerated, but in fact it is just a perfect mirror to where our society is heading to. It may be a completely artificial place, but there is a mix of recklessness and naivety that you encounter so often in this part of the world.  It is not as weird as one imagines at first sight, it is just less hypocritical; people want to have fun and money, period.

One could write long analysis about the names of the streets. Elite Road, for example. Or the last housing society ‘La Seine’ which wants to refer to Paris, to its luxury and lights, but nevertheless refers as well to the ex-colonialists. You can also find Harvard, Princeton or Yale road, and it is scary to imagine that most of the people are not aware of the total irony of those names.

I don’t speak Khmer but I would love to know how the hundreds of workers perceive what they are building. The island is a dead-end, the amusement park is a dead-end. But there are moments of tenderness, young love, and children at play. A recent addition to the island’s numerous characters, a well-sized concrete pig who could be both a kind of guardian angel and a nasty voyeur, may tell you more. (Text and Pictures by Marylise Vigneau)

See more of Marylise Vigneau`s work at:

http://www.marylisevigneau.com

Marylise Vigneau is a documentary photographer from France and has been mainly documenting life in Asia focusing on cities and on what time and development or isolation do to them. A mix  of her „Koh Pich“ and „Phnom Penh of the Future“, edited by Françoise Callier,  will be screened in the next Angkor Photo Festival: http://angkor-photo.com

Between the 1950s and 1994, tens of thousands of immigrants constructed a towering community 12 stories high across a 6.4-acre lot in Hong Kong.

It was called Kowloon Walled City.

With a population of 33,000 squeezed into the tiny lot, the city was 119 times denser at peask than present-day New York City. Although it faced high levels of crime and poor sanitation, the city was also impressively self-sustainable — until its demolition in 1993.

In the late eighties, Canadian photographer Greg Girard found his way into the windowless world.

He shared some photos and thoughts on his time in Kowloon Walled City with us here. You can check out the rest of his photos together with essays and work from photographer Ian Lambot in the recently released book „City of Darkness: Revisited.“

Read more:  http://www.techinsider.io/the-surreal-mania-of-chinas-kowloon-walled-city-2015-8#ixzz3izrNOTHD

Greg Girard is a Canadian photographer who has spent much of his career in Asia. His work examines the social and physical transformations taking place throughout the region. He is represented by Monte Clark Gallery (Vancouver/Toronto) and also works on assignment for publications such as National Geographic Magazine. 

http://www.greggirard.com