Photo Exhibition “Life Stories of Klong Toey 2006 – 2026” by Yoonki Kim
March 3 @ 10:00 am - March 15 @ 8:00 pm
Background
Khlong Toey (meaning pandan leaf canal) is an urban district in Bangkok expressing the city profound socio-economic divides. Right in the heart of the capital and close to the main port, Khlong Toey hosts the city’s largest low-income community of about 100,000 people. Born in the 1950s on land owned by the Port Authority of Thailand out of a squatter settlement of migrants from the North and the North East of Thailand, it continues to expand as the need for cheap housing remains among the many who arrive in Bangkok in search of better livelihoods. Today, a unique mix of people, including from outside Thailand, crowd a low and swamp-like area of about 1.5 square kilometers with their tiny and fragile homes and makes a living with limited means and amidst poor sanitation and health care, crime and drug addiction among others.
The photo exhibition “Life Stories of Klong Toey” was first organized by SEA Junction in the first floor of BACC on 10-22 July 2018. Now, for the 20th anniversary of his work, a larger exhibition with continued chronicles of the lives of seven residents between 2006 and 2026 will be held from 3 – 15 March 2026, on the Curved Wall, 4th Floor of the BACC. As the photographer tells it, he did his first photos in 2006 as part of a project focusing on poverty and deprivation. However, as time passed, he saw that there was much more to the life of the “have nots” and started to appreciate the uniqueness of the community and people’s resilience, solidarity in finding communal solutions, and openness in receiving new comers, notwithstanding the tensions and up and down of daily life.
His project “70Rai project” named after a part of the slum, became his life work and he has kept making weekly visits to the community and taken thousands of photos of the people who live there. By sharing his chronicles of a few Khlong Toey residents, Kim Yoonki hopes that the exhibition will confront some of the stereotypes about “poor people” and foster the respect they deserve.
Details of the exhibition opening will be shared later.
For more information, please email: info@seajunction.org or phone/wa: +66970024140
NB: The event is free, donations are welcome to support SEA Junction activities.
Photographer Short Bio
Kim Yoonki was born in 1955 and was raised and lived in Seoul until 1994 when he settled in Bangkok. He is a self-taught photographer who has started the 70Rai project in an underprivileged area of Khlongtoey, Bangkok in January 2006. Every week he visits the area and takes pictures using only black and white films of the people and the community and donate the prints to them. He is also making a website with the archive of all the photos taken ensuring access for the people of Klong Toey.
Organizer
SEA Junction, OUR Venue on Southeast Asia
SEA Junction aims to foster understanding and appreciation of Southeast Asia in all its socio-cultural dimensions –from arts and lifestyles to economy and development. Conveniently located at Room 408 of the Bangkok Arts and Culture Centre or BACC (across MBK, BTS National Stadium) SEA junction facilitates public access to knowledge resources and exchanges among students, practitioners and Southeast Asia lovers. For more information see www.seajunction.org and join the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1693055870976440/
