Occupying Ground
The sun was to rise at six thirty-eight that morning in Chiang Mai. At six, I was already on my way to the compound where Suriya and his colleagues lived. The night before, after dinner, we had all gathered around in the darkness to assemble cut out figures of negatives onto a sheet of paper made from plants and weeds growing in the surrounding empty plots. The strategy agreed this time was to fit as many images as possible onto the paper, which I had sensitised with photographic solution, so no space was wasted. We had then covered it with a heavy plastic sheet and weighted it down with bricks and rocks. As it lay there, on the bare soil waiting for the first light, it endured some rain, a bunch of chickens, and the siblings of young dogs.
(This work was originally exhibited at The Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, Australia in 2015)
