How did the project get started?
It’s been four years since I started the gallery. We wanted to encourage locals, give them exposure. But I found there weren’t as many interesting local photographers as we hoped. Maybe because of our expectations; they’re probably too high. So we’ve had a lot of foreign artists. But then I looked into the problem. I looked at our education. We don’t have much about our own history of Thai photography. We teach photography in university. But what do they teach? Do they just keeping imposing knowledge from the outside? I’m not against knowledge but it means we don’t acknowledge our local talent, we don’t respect our own talent, we look down on it. So young local photographers copy the West. That’s the trend right now.

So there was more Thainess in S.H. Lim’s photography?
Not really. When you’re talking about Thainess or Thai-style we tend to look at Thai form, Thai patterns, things reminiscent of a temple. So I’m not sure there’s a Thainess in his photography. But his work can reflect a time, or a period. When you look at his work, you can see how he presents women. You can sense that Thai women were liberated after World War 2. And Thais embraced industrialization and freedom. You can sense a kind of innocence: fresh, pure and also naïve.

It brings perspective.
Yes. I look beyond the picture. I look at the thinking behind. Why? What makes people photograph that image? SH Lim didn’t have a formal education. He had inspiration, probably from movie posters, maybe James Bond films. He reflects that kind of time and aesthetic.

Who’s next in the Forgotten Thai Photographers series?
The next one is a famous national artist, who passed away in 2009. Rong Wongsawan actually started as a photographer but had no future in that field. So he turned to writing. As a photographer he worked for a political weekly, called Siam Rath Weekly. He photographed mostly the life of that period [1954-56]. People waiting for a bus, or going to the market—everyday life. One I really like is the Rama 5 bridge renovation. He was sent to cover it. It was the first bridge to connect the old city to the new city. In between these historic exhibitions, we will have local talent. And if it all works well, after Rong, we will have prints from original glass negatives from Phuket. And I’m trying to dig up more but it’s a lot of work. I’m not a historian. I have my own work as an artist. I hope a teacher or an academic who studies this will take over the project. I’ll give the project to anybody who really wants to do it. But since nobody started yet, I have to.

Is it also a conservation effort?
For S.H. Lim, we had to scan the negatives but they were badly damaged. I also found a family in Chiang Mai who owns glass plates of Rama V-period photography taken by a merchant. For Rongsawan, we’re working from prints. Before, nobody cared about the negatives and they were put in cupboards and left to rot. So we hope that reintroducing the old masters will encourage families to maintain the negatives and help people value the history and the aesthetic of the old photographs. The question is: do we really have a photographic history of this country?

Catching up Manit Sriwanichpoom at S.H. Lim