Jean Héguy on teaching at Pikto

Jean teaches "Introduction to Professional Lighting for Beginners", "Introduction to Studio Portraiture", "A Journey into Night Photography", "Studio Lighting" and will be leading a group for a "Weekend of Photography in Montreal". He talks with PiktoNexi about his motivations and personal projects.

www.jeanheguy.com/

Workshops: www.pikto.com

‘Urban Jungle’, Photographs by Brent Lewin. Show dates, June 1st – July 1st 2009

Urban Jungle

   'Urban Jungle'

    After years of unsustainable and exponential growth in the construction industry during the 1990s led to an economic meltdown, countless developers went bankrupt and were forced to abandon their projects. 10 years on, all that’s left of the burst bubble are eerie pockets of the abandoned foundations of skyscrapers and suburban homes to be. While the construction boom may have ended with these structures, the day-to-day lives of Thais seeking to make ends meet continued on and many of Thailand’s poorest soon found new homes in other people’s forgotten dreams.

The Bangkok suburb of Bang Bua Thong, surrounded by marshland and hidden among tangled masses of overgrown grass and tropical vegetation, is the home of several hundred squatters, who occupy the abandoned concrete foundations of two-storey townhouse-style living quarters. In the furthest reaches of the complex, unknown even to many of its inhabitants, live five families with their ten domesticated elephants. As if from a classical tale of days gone by, the elephants live side by side with their handlers, or mahouts. Many of the elephants use the abandoned structures as a jungle gym, clambering in and out of the many rooms, some even climbing the stairs to the second floor.

The families are Khmer-speaking rice farmers from a poor province in the North of Thailand. To supplement their income when the rice growing season has ended they relocate to the suburbs of the capital and truck the elephants into town daily, walking them in the street to find people willing to pay to feed the elephants.

Elephants, revered symbols of Thailand’s glorified past, have long walked side by side with the monarchy and common farmers alike. The indispensable role of elephants in Thai society has been captured in countless tales and works of art.  Once a symbol of honour, dignity and the engine of rural development, many of these once proud creatures have been left on the fringes of Thailand’s modern economy and have come to represent the failures and inequity of economic development.